GERMANY: An Uzbek politician receiving cancer treatment in Germany left the country after human rights groups began a campaign to have him prosecuted there for rights violations at home, one of the groups said yesterday.
A lawyer for Human Rights Watch (HRW), which has accused Uzbekistan interior minister Zakirdzhon Almatov of crimes against humanity, said the group was not sure of the reason behind his departure from Germany.
"Almatov has left the country, but we don't know when and why," said Wolfgang Kaleck, lawyer for the New York-based HRW, citing diplomatic sources. It accuses Mr Almatov of murder and systematic torture in prisons in the central Asian state and last week submitted a case on behalf of torture victims and survivors of what it called a massacre of unarmed protesters in the eastern Uzbek town of Andizhan in May.
Witnesses said troops opened fire on a crowd of men, women and children in Andizhan's main square, killing more than 500.
Uzbek authorities said 187 people, mainly "foreign-paid terrorists", had been killed in what the government describes as an attempt to overthrow the constitutional order.
A UN human rights official has also asked Germany to prosecute Mr Almatov on charges of torture and crimes against humanity.