Top Uzbek opposition leader sentenced to 10 years jail

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2006

TASHKENT (AFP) — The head of Uzbekistan's main opposition movement was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison on Monday for economic crimes, a judge announced, after a trial seen by rights groups as politically motivated.

Sanjar Umarov "headed an organized criminal group and also created several offshore companies to commit economic crimes," Judge Zokirjon Isayev said in announcing the guilty verdict and sentence.

Umarov had condemned the violent suppression by Uzbek security forces of an uprising last year and was a rare high-profile critic of the government in this tightly-controlled Central Asian state.

Umarov's lawyer immediately announced plans to appeal the sentence.

"We will certainly appeal the verdict and I think that Umarov's guilt was...