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Two Tajik Suspects In 2017 Stockholm Attack Reportedly In Custody In Syria


Parviz Saidrahmonov appears in a report by Turkish TRT TV.
Parviz Saidrahmonov appears in a report by Turkish TRT TV.

Two Tajik men believed to be involved in a deadly 2017 truck attack in Stockholm -- one of whom had been believed dead -- are reportedly in custody in Syria.

Parviz Saidrahmonov, known as Abu Davud, and Tojiddin Nazarov, known as Abu Osama Noraki, both 32, are wanted in Russia and Tajikistan on terrorism charges.

Swedish investigators said Saidrahmonov and Nazarov were accomplices of Rakhmat Akilov, an ethnic Tajik from Uzbekistan, who was sentenced to life in prison in Stockholm in April 2018 for the Stockholm attack, in which five people were killed.

Akilov admitted at the trial that he drove a hijacked truck down a busy pedestrian street in the center of Stockholm on April 7, 2017, killing three Swedes including an 11-year-old girl, a British man, and a Belgian woman. Ten other people were injured.

WATCH: Failed Uzbek asylum seeker Rakhmat Akilov, accused of carrying out a deadly truck attack in Stockholm last April, had contact with high-ranking Islamic State militants, according to an investigation by RFE/RL's Uzbek and Tajik services.

Uzbek Suspect Had Contact With IS Militants During Stockholm Truck Attack
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Saidrahmonov had been reported dead in 2017. However, in a November 23 report on Islamic State (IS) fighters captured in Syria, Turkish TRT Haber TV showed a man in the custody of Syrian regime forces who appeared to be Saidrahmonov.

According to the report, Saidrahmonov is currently being held in a prison in the city of Afrin.

A Tajik official told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that authorities in Dushanbe "are aware of the Turkish television report," and the man on the video was indeed identified as Saidrahmonov by his sister.

The official also said the Tajik government was working to have Saidrahmonov extradited to Tajikistan.

Separately, an RFE/RL source in Turkey who is in contact with Tajik IS members captured in Syria told RFE/RL by phone on December 18 that Nazarov had also been captured by and was being kept in a prison in the city of Deir ez-Zor, which is currently under the control of Syrian regime forces.

Tajik authorities have named Nazarov as the most dangerous IS recruiter in Tajikistan.

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