Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January-June 2007 the constitutional order and issued a search warrant for him. As a result Abdulaziz Boimatov changed his name and acquired a forged Russian passport. In early 2006 he was detained by police in Ekaterinburg. While in pre-trial detention he applied to the FMS for asylum. In December 2006 he was released after the General Procuracy refused to extradite him to Uzbekistan. In February 2007 he was sentenced to community service by a court in Sverdlovsk Region for being in possession of a forged passport. Ukraine Ten asylum-seekers from Uzbekistan, who had been seeking international protection in Ukraine, were forcibly returned to Uzbekistan by Ukrainian authorities during the night of 14-15 February 2006. They were believed to be still held in incommunicado detention at the end of June. Despite considerable efforts it was not possible to establish their whereabouts in Uzbekistan. Only in November did the Uzbekistani authorities inform the EU of the fate of the 10 men. In their response to the EU the Uzbekistani authorities noted that 11 men had in fact been deported from Ukraine. All had been accused of being members of Akramia and of having taken part in the Andizhan events. Two men, Ilkhom Khasanov and Ikrom Akhmedov were sentenced to prison terms of 13 and nine years respectively by Tashkent City Court on 21 July 2006. Eight men were sentenced to three years of corrective labour and the criminal case against the eleventh man, Shukhrat Khudzhaev, had reportedly only just been handed to the court at that point. According to information available at the time of detention the Uzbekistani authorities had reportedly issued extradition warrants for 11 men on the grounds that they allegedly participated in the Andizhan events. On 7 February the Security Service of Ukraine allegedly detained the 11 men in two different locations in Crimea based on the extradition warrants. They were reportedly transferred to a Ministry of Interior Amnesty International 157 detention facility in Simferopol, Ukraine, and 10 of them were forcibly returned to Uzbekistan on the night of 14-15 February. The remaining man was reportedly allowed to stay as he had relatives in Ukraine. Kyrgyzstan In August 2006, four Uzbekistani refugees and one asylum-seeker forcibly returned by Kyrgyzstan were detained in Andizhan pretrial detention centre, according to the Uzbekistani authorities. A criminal investigation had reportedly been launched into the men’s participation in the Andizhan events. Although the authorities reportedly had given diplomatic assurances to their Kyrgyzstani counterparts that international organizations, including representatives of the UN, would have access to the men after their return, this had not been granted by March 2007. It was not clear whether access had been granted to EU delegations since. Death penalty A new law adopted by the Uzbekistani Senate on 29 June 2007 amended the Criminal, Criminal Procedural and Criminal Executive Codes by replacing the death penalty with life or long-term imprisonment. The law was supposed to enter into force from 1 January 2008 marking the formal abolition of the death penalty in Uzbekistan. According to some NGOs sources, there were around 1,000 prisoners under death sentence held in conditions that are considered to be cruel, inhumane and degrading. According to the NGO Mothers Against the Death Penalty and Torture, out of at least 25 prisoners on death row in Tashkent prison, 20 people were reported to be infected with TB and not receiving an adequate medical treatment. AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007