Amnesty International (AI) issued a report in which...

Amnesty International (AI) issued a report in which it voiced concern over the destinies of people sentenced to death in Uzbekistan. The document issued by the organization mentioned the cases of 20-year-old Abror Isayev and 23-year-old Nodirbek Karimov, who were charged with murdering two people in May 2002. They were sentenced to death on 23 December 2002 by the Tashkent regional court. They had both said that they had been subjected to torture during the investigation. The AI statement said that on 27 April Isayev's case was reconsidered by the Uzbek Supreme Court, which passed a ruling ordering the death sentence to be commuted to 20 years imprisonment. In February 2003 the UN human rights commission urged the Uzbek government to suspend the execution of the two death row inmates. In December 2003 the government responded positively to the request.
Another report issued by AI dealt with another two death row convicts, Yevgeniy Gugnin and Farid Nasibulin. It said that on April 23 the country's higher court overruled a death sentence passed in Gugnin's case and ordered that the case be re-evaluated. However, Nasibulinbe may have been executed. The AI statement welcomed the decisions to commute sentences of some death row convicts but drew the government's attention to other prisoners awaiting execution.