The Mirabad District Court of Tashkent has completed the trial of former Agriculture Minister Aziz Voitov and 61 other defendants. The verdict was announced on September 15, according to Supreme Court spokesman Aziz Abidov.
The court found Voitov guilty under Article 167, Part 3, Clause “a” of the Criminal Code (“Embezzlement or misappropriation on a particularly large scale”), as well as several other articles. Since the material damage to the state had been fully compensated, the court did not impose imprisonment. Instead, Voitov was sentenced to three years of corrective labor with 30 percent of his salary withheld in favor of the state, a fine equal to 400 times the basic calculation unit, and a three-year ban on holding managerial or financially responsible positions.
According to the law, if damages are compensated, penalties involving restriction or deprivation of liberty are not applied. In this case, the court ordered that the funds deposited into a special account be transferred to the state.
Another key defendant, Khusnuddin Karimov, who headed the Agency for Agricultural Services under the Ministry of Agriculture, was sentenced to eight years and six months in prison. He was also banned from holding managerial or financially responsible positions for three years.
Of the remaining 60 defendants, nine received real prison terms, while 51 were given non-custodial sentences.
Aziz Voitov headed the Ministry of Agriculture from August 2022 to October 2023. Before that, starting in March 2020, he served as First Deputy Minister of Investments and Foreign Trade.
He was dismissed from his post in October 2023 and taken into custody in December of the same year. The trial began on September 5, 2024, and lasted for one year. It was held behind closed doors.