Uzbek opposition trial verdict

The supreme court in Uzbekistan has sentenced two prominent opposition leaders to death and given heavy prison terms to ten others for trying to overthrow the government.

The two men, Juma Namangani and Tohir Yuldash whose Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was blamed for the deaths of seventy people, were tried in absentia.

A secular opposition leader, the head of the banned Freedom party, Muhammad Solih, who lives in exile in Europe, was sentenced to fifteen and a half years in prison.

The international group, Human Rights Watch, strongly condemned the trial which it said failed to prove the guilt of the accused. The defendants were accused of various crimes, including organizing a series of bomb attacks in the capital, Tashkent last year and military incursions into Uzbekistan this year.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service