Uzbekistan: former Interior Ministry officers were convicted of torture

On November 27, the Regional Criminal court found six former Interior Ministry officers of Andijan guilty and announced the verdict: five officers were sentenced to up to 10 years in prison, the sixth criminal participant would spend one year in colony.

Thus, the criminal case on the death of Alijon Abdukarimov, who did not bear the consequences of torture, ended. Immediately after the circumstances of the detention and beatings of the 44-year-old Andijan citizen were made public in June, 19 managers and employees were brought to disciplinary responsibility.

As ACCA previously wrote, on June 11, after torture, Alijon Abdukarimov from Andijan died without regaining consciousness. After being illegally detained on the evening of May 29, three officers tortured him at the police station. Only the next day, the relatives managed to find out where he was. When they were allowed to see Alijon, they saw how the officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs tried to revive him by pouring cold water on him. The investigation has established that “the employees of the criminal investigation department used violence that was dangerous to health and life”.

The investigation began after the publication on a social network of a video from the regional center for emergency medical care, filmed by the sister of the tortured Andijan citizen. She was ashamed to show injuries in the groin area, but the traces of torture from head to toe are clearly visible.

Late at night, the body was handed over to relatives and on June 12, at seven in the morning, Alijon was buried without examination. For more than a day, representatives of the internal affairs bodies persuaded his relatives not to make a fuss and tried to hide the fact of the violence, but the news about it quickly spread among the townspeople. The sister of the deceased also began to write and call various authorities.

The statement of the Committee on Defense and Security of the Senate [Oliy Majlis] says that the security forces of Andijan were inspected on May 25 (a few days before the incident). Abuses in the police department aroused their alarm, and they denied the professionalism of the head of the Activity Coordination Department, Lieutenant Colonel Sadyk Usmanov, and directly accused him of official repugnancy. It is quite obvious that the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs neglected the conclusions of the senators. Numerous facts of torture by employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs testify to the weak strength of the law “On amendments and additions to certain legislative acts of the Republic of Uzbekistan in connection with the adoption of measures to strengthen the guarantees of the rights and freedoms of citizens in judicial investigation activities”.

The amendment to the legislation has been in effect since April 2018, which strengthens the responsibility for the use of torture and other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Changes in the legislation for the use of torture entail punishment for a term of three to five years, with deprivation of the right to hold certain positions. If there were grievous bodily harm or other grave consequences, the punishment would be from 7 to 10 years in prison.

The Interior Ministry pretends that all torture incidents are extraordinary. Deputy head of the Investigation Department under the Ministry of Internal Affairs Sobirzoda Oripov tried to defend his professional honor in the commentary on the results of the trial.

“As a representative of the Investigation Department under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, I can directly say that before that, there were not such human rights violations in the investigation departments,” he said. His statement is refuted by both official data and publications of independent media, including the ACCA portal.

On October 21, Deputy Prosecutor General Abdukhalim Kholmakhmatov said that since the beginning of the year, the Prosecutor General’s Office received 242 complaints of torture and inhuman treatment. During the same period, 2323 complaints of illegal actions in the Ministry of Internal Affairs were investigated.

“11 law enforcement officers were charged with crimes of torture,” Kholmakhmatov said.