Uzbek dissident surprised at being taken into custody in Czech Republic


Czech news agency CTK
December 5

Uzbek dissident Muhammad Solih did not expect he would be taken into custody in the country which is headed by President Vaclav Havel, Solih said in a statement which was sent to CTK by his defence lawyer Miroslava Kohoutova today.

He said he thought the law valid in the Czech Republic was the same as the law in the EU countries. Solih was detained on his arrival at the Prague airport on the basis of a warrant issued for his arrest by Interpol at Tashkent's initiative.

Solih fled President Islam Karimov's regime in Uzbekistan, where he was in early 1999 sentenced in absentia to 15.5 years in prison for his alleged participation in a terrorist attack in Tashkent in which 16 people were killed. In Uzbekistan he could face even death penalty, according to observers.

Norway, which granted Solih and his family political asylum in 1998, experienced a wave of protests from Uzbekistan, Solih wrote in the statement. "After studying my file sent by Uzbek authorities, the Norwegian government was not persuaded that I was a terrorist, it was rather persuaded that I was a terror victim," Solih wrote. He denied he would take part in the terrorist attack for which he had been sentenced in Tashkent.

Solih said he believed the Czech Republic was a legal state but he added he also counted with the possibility of extradition. "They can send me back, which would be the worst thing that could happen to me. In that case I should prepare for death," he said.