From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Tue Oct 24 2000 - 10:43:20 EDT
TRIAL OF ISLAMIC MOVEMENT OF UZBEKISTAN ACTIVISTS TO BEGIN IN TASHKENT
OCTOBER 30
TASHKENT. Oct 24 (Interfax) - The Supreme Court of Uzbekistan has
scheduled for October 30 the hearings of the case involving the
terrorist activity of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the
Court press service told Interfax on Tuesday.
These hearings will be held on the basis of an indictment handed
down by the Prosecutor General's Office on twelve defendants charged
with of organizing terrorist activity in Uzbekistan. Among them are
movement leaders Takhir Yuldash, Dzhuma Khodzhiyev (Namangani) and Salai
Madaminov (Muhammad Salikh).
Nine of the defendants are in hiding abroad, and only Ulugbek
Makhmutov, Olimzhon Abdulvokhidov and Usman Shukurov, who were arrested
during an operation to clear the Surkhandarya and Tashkent regions of
terrorists, will be present in the courtroom. Given the seriousness of
the charges, the trial will begin even though some of the defendants
will not be present.
Representatives of the public, the human rights commissioner of the
Uzbek parliament and relatives of the victims will be invited to witness
the hearings.
Investigators have established that Yuldash, Khodzhiyev and
Madaminov organized armed formations that operated in different parts of
Uzbekistan. In the period from 1991 to 1999, the IMU committed 19
murders, and carried out 35 armed attacks and a series of bomb
explosions in Tashkent in February 1998, in which 16 people were killed
and 128 others were wounded. They also engaged in subversive operations
in the Tashkent region in November 1999. Yuldash and Khodzhiyev
organized the terrorists' invasion of the Surkhandarya and Tashkent
regions in July and August of this year.
Each of the defendants is charged with several crimes.
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