Russian Sentenced to 16 Years in Uzbekistan

Russian officials are intervening on behalf of a Russian man who has been sentenced to 16 years in an Uzbek prison on charges of treason, the Yekaterinburg-based E1.ru reports.

Sixty-three-year-old Yury Korepanov had been in solitary confinement since October 30, when border guards pulled him off a Russia-bound train at the Uzbek-Kazakh border. Korepanov, who served in Uzbekistan for 30 years as a corporal in the Soviet army and stayed in the country for another decade, was returning home to Yekaterinburg, where he has lived since 2003, after a family visit. He was then accused of crossing the Uzbek border illegally and of using an old Uzbek passport illegally to obtain a Shengen (EU) visa.

Meanwhile, family members maintain Korepanov surrendered his Uzbek citizenship and passport back when he left the country. ("Crossing the Uzbek border illegally" also seems near impossible for a Russian, since Uzbekistan and Russia have a no-visa agreement.) But even if Korepanov committed some kind of infraction, it is anyone's guess how the charge transformed into "treason": a court convicted him on that charge on January 11, meting out the 16-year sentence.

Initially, the Russian Foreign Ministry refused action in response to a letter composed by Korepanov's son Dmitry, but Russia finally got involved on January 20 -- albeit unoficially. The impasse broke after a Duma, or parliament, representative from Yekaterinburg traveled to Tashkent to meet with the Russian ambassador there, ensuring a move that evidently caused Korepanov to be transferred to a regular prison and allowed to see his family.

Lawyers also were able to file a complaints appeal on behalf of Korepanov before the 10-day deadline expired after sentencing. The complaint opens the possibility of the Uzbek judiciary voiding Korepanov's sentence before he begins serving it. But then again, if treason can come out of an alleged minor passport infraction, who knows what the Russians' involvement could bring to the table?