Uzbek minister, accused in West, gets state award

Reuters December 23 Uzbekistan's interior minister, accused by the European Union over the deaths of unarmed protesters in the town of Andizhan in May, has resigned but has also been decorated, the government said on Friday. Zakirdzhan Almatov, banned with some other senior Uzbek officials from entering the EU which has said they used indiscriminate force in the eastern town, stepped down for health reasons, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. But the ministry said Almatov had at the same time been decorated by President Islam Karimov for "outstanding merits in defending the Motherland, safeguarding peace and stability (and showing) devotion to a high cause and courage". Karimov himself came under fire from Western governments and human rights bodies over the Andizhan deaths. Some 500 people died when government forces fired into crowds of protesters, according to witnesses. The Uzbek authorities say 187 people died and blame the uprising on "foreign-paid terrorists". Despite the visa ban, Almatov had been granted permission to undergo a life-saving operation for cancer in Germany. But he left Germany abruptly earlier this week after human rights groups began a campaign to have him prosecuted there for human rights violations at home. New York-based Human Rights Watch last week submitted a case on behalf of torture victims and survivors of what it called a massacre of unarmed protesters in Andizhan. A U.N. special rapporteur on torture asked Germany to prosecute Almatov for torture and crimes against humanity. TRIALS CONTINUE Closed trials of those accused of plotting and aiding the Andizhan rebellion have been in progress in Uzbekistan. The Central Asian state's Supreme Court said on Friday that 24 prison workers and army servicemen had been jailed by a military court for between one and three years for "grave dereliction of duty" during the uprising. The court said earlier that another 37 people had been given long jail terms of up to 18 years for murder, terrorism and attempting a coup. The Uzbek authorities held an open trial and sentenced 15 people to long jail terms last month. But after fierce international criticism of the trial as an unfair and staged show, only closed trials have been conducted since then. On Wednesday, 41 people were jailed for up to 20 years. The latest trials brought the number of those found guilty of plotting or aiding the Andizhan rebellion to 175. Karimov, in power since Soviet times and backed by China and Russia, justifies his policy by saying that he needs to be tough to prevent an upsurge of militant Islam in his largely Muslim nation of 26 million. The U.S. military retreated from a key Uzbek airbase this month after Tashkent gave them six months to leave following Washington's strong criticism of the Andizhan bloodshed. Karimov's critics argue that widespread poverty and political repression, rather than radical Islam, are the main reasons behind growing popular discontent.