Germany admits sick Uzbek minister despite EU ban

Reuters November 15 Uzbekistan's interior minister has been granted permission to undergo a life-saving operation in Germany despite being barred from the European Union over the crushing of protests last May in which many people died. "We issued the visa on humanitarian grounds," a German government official said on Tuesday, a day after Uzbek Interior Minister Zakirdzhon Almatov was officially banned along with 11 other top officials from entering the EU for a year. The official said the visa was issued in October. Berlin, aware of the forthcoming ban, had informed the EU's executive Commission and Britain, which holds the bloc's rotating presidency. The official said he did not know if Almatov was already in the country. Der Spiegel magazine said the minister was already receiving treatment for spinal cancer at the International Neuroscience Institute in Hanover, where a spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny the report. The Uzbek embassy also declined comment, saying its media spokesman was unavailable. The EU Council, which groups the 25 member states' governments, said on Monday its visa ban was "aimed at those individuals who are directly responsible for the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force" to crush the May 13 protests in the town of Andizhan. But it allowed for certain exemptions, including on humanitarian grounds. The Council also imposed an arms embargo on Uzbekistan. Lotte Leicht, EU director of Human Rights Watch, said Almatov should be allowed to stay in Germany until he was fit to be treated elsewhere, and the travel ban should then apply "as he is on top of the list". She urged the EU to freeze the assets of the blacklisted officials and to extend the ban to Uzbek President Islam Karimov. "There is one key person missing on the list ... Nothing happens in Uzbekistan without the consent, but also the direct orders, of President Karimov," she said. Witnesses of the unrest in Andizhan in May said troops opened fire on a crowd of men, women and children in the main square. Eyewitnesses told Reuters troops killed hundreds and shot dead some of the wounded. The authorities said the troops had killed 187 people, mainly "foreign-paid terrorists", for trying to overthrow the constitutional order. An Uzbek court on Monday found 15 men guilty of an Islamist terrorist plot, and sentenced them to between 14 and 20 years in prison.