Tajikistan Distances Itself from Suspect Arrested in Israel for Spying for Iranian Intelligence
Tajikistan's interior minister Ramazon Rahimzoda told a Dushanbe news conference on July 21 that a man arrested in Israel on suspicion of spying for Iran is no longer a Tajik citizen, saying the suspect renounced his Tajik citizenship and holds a Russian passport
Dushanbe's citizenship denial functions as diplomatic distancing rather than resolved fact: Rahimzoda offered no documentation, and Israeli security services have not amended their identification of the suspect as a dual Tajik-Russian national indicted as Behruz Sharif Dodoboev. Reporting rests on a single wire account with no independent corroboration, leaving the claim unverified pending any Russian confirmation of exclusive citizenship. The statement more plausibly reflects Dushanbe's effort to limit reputational exposure and preserve ties with Moscow and Tehran than a substantiated legal change in the suspect's status, and it complicates the intelligence picture of the recruitment chain that prior reporting had described only as a dual-national arrest.