DUSHANBE -- A court in Khatlon Province sentenced an "Islamic State" (IS) member to 12.5 years in prison after his own brother informed on him, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Tajik service reported Monday (September 4), quoting a source at the court.
The court found Batirkhon Kavrakov guilty of three charges including "organising the activity of an extremist organisation". Police arrested him in January in his village, Mekhtar, after his brother Shomurod told police that Batirkhon -- as a migrant worker in Russia -- had been urging other Tajiks to join IS in Syria and Iraq.
The defendant confessed that he had been planning to tell his parents that he was going to Syria.