Court trial on missing rare manuscripts from NUU started

On August 26, a court case regarding missing rare books from the National University of Uzbekistan (NUU) was held in the Mirzo Ulugbek district court of Tashkent city, Kun.uz correspondent reported. 

It is reported that the investigation and the court proceedings are simultaneously ongoing. For this reason, the judge issued a ruling to refuse video and audio recording of the trial for the time being.

Due to the large number of witnesses and the volume of the case, the court process may be prolonged. In particular, the meeting was postponed because there was not enough time to listen to the witnesses during today’s court proceedings.

Khayot Shamsutdinov, head of the PGO press service, informed Kun.uz that at the same time, charges were announced against the director of the NUU Information Resource Center and a preventive measure of detention was applied.

Also, according to the conclusion of the documentary investigation and other investigative actions in the criminal case, the actions of other center employees will also be assessed legally.

Svetlana Nishanbayeva, the daughter of Irina Kislitsina, the director of the NUU Information Resource Center (currently detained as a precautionary measure), appealed to the President for help, stating that her mother had nothing to do with the disappearance of these books. 

“My mother was not responsible for the rare manuscripts, but she warned the management several times that when the books were moved to another place during the museum renovation, they were not kept in appropriate conditions,” the accused’s daughter says. 

It should be recalled that after the renovation work in 2019, the activities of the Museum of Rare Manuscripts of the National University of Uzbekistan have not been restored. On December 23, 2021, Kun.uz reported that after the 2019 renovation, the activity of NUU Museum of Rare Manuscripts has not been restored and and more than 100 books, which are considered valuable and extremely rare, may have been sold there.

A day after the report, the PGO began investigating the library-related case.

At first, the NUU leadership, which was reluctant to comment on the situation, invited representatives of TV and online publications, presented a few books and tried to convince the mass media that the rare books were not “lost or sold”.

On February 21, 2022, the prosecutor’s office completed the investigation. During the inspection, 56 pieces of manuscripts and 6 pieces of lithographic works worth 2.6 billion soums, stored in the Fund of the NUU Information Resource Center, were looted and other serious violations of the law were revealed. A criminal case was initiated against the officials.