Uzbekistan: Russian Colonel Released from Prison in Poor Health
Some good news from Uzbekistan for a change...
Col. Yuri Korepanov (Ret.), a Russian military officer who was earlier this year arrested and sentenced to 16 years of imprisonment on vague charges of border-crossing and treason for reasons unknown, has finally been released from prison, fergananews.com reported yesterday.
His family and Russian parliamentarians have kept up a campaign for his release since his arrest in January, and some observers believe Russian President Dmitry Medvedev may have even raised the case during his meeting last month with Uzbek President Islam Karimov.
Col. Korepanov had lived and worked in Uzbekistan for 40 years, and when he retired, had moved to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg to be closer to his family. There he found work as a security guard and inspector, and later travelled to Uzbekistan several times. On one of his trips back to Yekaterinburg, he was pulled from a train unexpectedly and detained.
The case was seen within a context where the Uzbek government has made a number of moves to disassociate itself with the Soviet and Russian-dominated past, renaming streets once bearing Russian names with the names of Uzbek heroes, and retiring Soviet-era war memorials.
The only drawback to this good news is that the colonel has not been given any form of identification yet that will enable him to travel. And apparently he hasn't been exonerated, but the sentence still hangs over him -- it's just that he has been released, and possibly will be amnestied due to poor health, his son, Dmitry Korepanov told reporters.
Col. Korepanov was hospitalized in prison on June 29, said Dmitry.
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