International support for alleged torture victim sentenced to death grows

Pressure continued on Wednesday as the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the international community to condemn the recent verdict in the trial of Iskandar Khudoiberganov, sentenced to death for allegedly propagating religious extremism in Uzbekistan. "This decision shows that the Uzbek authorities are not taking the issue of torture seriously," Matilda Bogner, HRW office director in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent told IRIN. "What is particularly concerning is the fact that a death sentence has been given on the basis of evidence allegedly taken under torture." In a statement, the watchdog group said that Judge Nizamiddin Rustamov sentenced Khudoiberganov to death on 28 November, ignoring testimony by the accused and two witnesses that their confessions and incriminating statements were coerced under torture. The verdict came at a time of increased international focus on Uzbekistan, including by the United Nations, whose Special Rapporteur on Torture is currently conducting a fact-finding mission in the country. Khudoiberganov, 28, was arrested in 2001 in Tajikistan and extradited to Uzbekistan on 5 February, 2002. Tried together with five others at the Tashkent municipal court, the defendants were accused of organising a criminal group to propagate religious "extremism", while Khudoiberganov was also charged with terrorism and murder and was accused of having trained in military camps in Chechyna and Tajikistan. However, according to HRW, the evidence at the trial relied pivotally on written testimonies by defendants and witnesses who later retracted them in court. Attending Khudoiberganov's trial, HRW heard him testify in court that he was beaten in the basement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Tashkent. Individuals close to the case told the group that in February, the police also administered electric shocks to Khudoiberganov and that since 12 February he was held at the National Security Service, where officers beat him, deprived him of sleep, and drugged him with injections, including during the trial. Other defendants testified in court that police had beaten him with batons and suffocated them with plastic bags and gas masks in order to coerce confessions. "The death penalty in all cases is wrong, and it is all the more horrifying to see a man condemned to death on the basis of the words beaten out of him," HRW executive director for Europe and Central Asian division said. "Torture allegations are all too common in Uzbekistan, and the authorities simply don't investigate them." Her comments were shared by Amnesty International which has already issued three urgent actions calling for a thorough investigation into the allegations. Last week, Amnesty expressed concern that the court hearings failed to meet international standards for a fair trial and in light of torture allegations, called for a prompt and impartial investigation, with the findings made public and those responsible for human rights violations to be brought to justice. The group has called for a memorandum on death sentences and executions to be imposed, and that all pending death sentences be commuted. "If the Uzbek authorities are committed to reform, they have to take urgent steps to investigate the allegations of torture and ill-treatment of Iskandar Khudoberganov and his co-defendants thoroughly and impartially and bring to justice anybody reasonably suspected to be responsible for torturing the detainees." Anna Sunder-Plassman, a Central Asia researcher for Amnesty told IRIN from London. But for Bogner, the verdict points to a much larger problem in the populous Central Asian state - and one that has been largely ignored following the events of 11 September. "The international players in the region need to re-examine what is happening here - not just on the issue of torture, but human rights in general," she said.