High-Profile Prison Escapees Caught In Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan

Kazbek Jabrailov is one of the escapees to have been detained.

DUSHANBE -- The Tajik Interior Ministry says two escapees from a high-profile jailbreak last year have been detained in east-central Tajikistan and in Kyrgyzstan, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports.

Officials said that Kazbek Jabrailov, 26, was detained in the Sugarak village of the Jirgatol district on the border with Kyrgyzstan. They said a large amount of weapons and ammunition was confiscated from him.

The Tajik Interior Ministry added that on July 12, Kyrgyz security services captured escapee Nizomi Abiev, who was detained in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.

Jabrailov and Abiev -- both residents of the Russian republic of Daghestan -- had served long prison terms in Tajikistan.

On August 23, 2010, 25 inmates escaped from the National Security Committee's top-security prison in Dushanbe, killing four guards in the process. Four of the escapees were Russian citizens, four were Afghans, two were Uzbek citizens, and the rest were Tajiks.

Following the captures on July 12, a total of 17 escapees have now been detained and four killed, leaving just four men involved in the jailbreak still on the run.

A Tajik court last month sentenced four of the captured escapees to life imprisonment and three others received 30-year jail terms for their part in the prison break.