DUSHANBE, Tajikistan: Authoritarian Tajikistan sentenced several high-profile ex-officials to jail terms of up to 27 years on Wednesday after secret trials, accusing them of plotting a “coup d´etat” in the tightly-controlled state, media and lawyers said.

The landlocked impoverished country has been ruled by President Emomali Rakhmon since 1992.

Sensitive trials in Tajikistan are mostly closed to the public and press, classed as secret by authorities, who refuse to comment on them.

There has been no official information on the trial. The Tajik branch of US-financed Radio Free Europe and Asia said however that former foreign minister Khamrokhon Zarifi and a former political party leader, Saidjafar Uzmonzoda, were each sentenced to 27 years in prison.