The management of the Tajik state aluminum company TALCO is going to bring to account Khoji Akbar Turajonzoda, the member of Majlisi Oli (upper chamber of the parliament). This information appeared in the SSSR weekly (14 May 2009).

According to the source close to the aluminum company, the recent political intrigues around TALCO and its noted representatives, as well as libel and publically voiced conjectures, are undermining its image.

According to SSSR, the conflict has been lasting for three months. Turajonzoda called TALCO “a harmful enterprise for the Tajik economy”, and recently, after the reprint of an article titled “Turajonzoda is a KGB agent?” and acute feedback in the newspapers “Millat”, “Nigokh” and “Ozodagon”, the parliamentarian came up with a public statement saying that the information campaign against him is launched by TALCO.

The TALCO lawyers have called Turajonzoda’s reaction “a libel against the managers of the enterprise”, and currently are preparing an application to the court.

Khoji Akbar Turajonzoda remains one of the very few controversial characters in the Tajik political arena. In the twilight of the Soviet era he held a title of Kazi Kalon (superior spiritual leader), and in the early 1990-s headed the Islamically oriented United Tajik Opposition (UTO), which opposed the secular government and unleashed the protracted bloody civil war in Tajikistan. Shortly after the signing of the Peace Accord between the warring factions in 1997, he received a position in the government (according to the Peace Agreement quota). For several years he held a post of deputy prime minister.

At present, Turajonzoda is known as one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in Tajikistan involved in cotton business.

Publications about the parliamentarian’s “murky past” and his relations with the Russian special services appeared recently in a number of Russian newspapers and online media.