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Man Convicted in Allamjonov Assassination Plot Dead by Suicide in Prison

According to RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service, Ismail Jahongirov – sentenced last year to 23 years in prison – died by suicide while in the prison’s solitary confinement unit.

One of the men convicted last year in a secretive military trial for involvement in the October 2024 attempted assassination of Komil Allamjonov, at the time a former Uzbek government official, reportedly died by suicide last week inside Penitentiary No. 13 in Chirchik, northeast of Tashkent.

According to RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service, Ozodlik, Ismail Jahongirov – sentenced last year to 23 years in prison – died by suicide while in the prison’s solitary confinement unit. According to Ozodlik’s source, on February 26 Jakhongirov used his own clothes to hang himself in his cell. Ozodlik spoke to Jahongirov’s relatives, who said the funeral was held on February 27. 

So far, the Uzbek authorities have not commented. 

On October 26, Allamjonov was the target of an apparent assassination attempt in Tashkent. Two individuals fired multiple gunshots at the car in which Allamjonov was traveling. No one was injured in the attack and the shooters escaped.

Allamjonov, until the end of September 2024, had been head of the Information Policy Department in Uzbekistan’s Presidential Administration, following several prominent posts in and adjacent to government, largely dealing with media. Allamjonov often worked alongside Saida Mirziyoyeva, the president’s eldest daughter. 

Over the course of 2024, Allamjonov had been subject to an online smear campaign, including rumors that he’d been fired and had fled abroad. In late September, he abruptly resigned. Weeks later, shots were fired and what appears to have been an internal struggle erupted into the headlines.

When the dust settled – after a bizarre confession by the shooters, arrests, an extradition from South Korea, and an initial shakeup in the security service – a trial went ahead in a military court. Its verdict was shared on February 12, 2025 by the Supreme Court. 

Jahongirov and Shokhrukh Akhmedov, who had been previously linked to an assassination attempt targeting critics of Chechen........

© The Diplomat