The number of crimes punishable by the death penalty were reduced from eight to four through amendments to the Criminal Code that came into effect in October 2001.

The number of crimes punishable by the death penalty were reduced from eight to four through amendments to the Criminal Code that came into effect in October 2001. The death penalty now applies only for crimes of aggression, genocide, terrorism and first-degree murder. The amendments also exempted men over 60 years of age alongside women and minors from the death penalty. Provisions for the commutation of death sentences to 25-year jail terms are in place, but life imprisonment does not exist.
On August 29, 1998, the Oliy Majlis (Parliament) had removed the death penalty from the Penal Code as a punishment for 5 crimes: forced sex satisfaction in perverted form; breaking of laws and customs of war; making an attempt on life of the President of the Republic; espionage; smuggling of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and other kinds of mass-destruction armaments.
In Uzbekistan there is no data available on the death penalty, because many cases are subject to the Official Secrets Act, especially those concerning national security, which come under the jurisdiction of a security service answerable solely to the head of the State. Therefore, we have no way of knowing exactly how many inmates or condemned prisoners there are, how many executions have been carried out, or even how many prisons exist in the country.
Reported death sentences and executions in Uzbekistan have reached an alarmingly high number following the February 1999 bomb explosions in Tashkent which the Uzbek government claims were attempts on President Islam Karimov's life. In July 2000 the general procuracy confirmed that 19 death sentences handed down in 1999 for involvement in the Tashkent bombings had been carried out.
On December 6, 2002 a United Nations' rapporteur accused Uzbekistan of routinely using torture to terrorize opponents and obtain confessions which sometimes resulted in courts handing down the death penalty. «Torture as far as I can see, it is my impression, is not just incidental but... is systemic in this country,» UN human rights rapporteur on torture Theo van Boven told a news briefing. He said the forms of torture used by Uzbek police and secret services included beatings, electric shocks, immersion of the victim's head in water and suffocation with plastic bags.
Independent human rights groups have reported an average of 600 arrests for political or religious motives every year. There were at least 6,500 political prisoners in Uzbekistan in 2003.
Executions are generally carried out by shooting. The body of the executed person is not given back to relatives, neither are they informed of the place of burial.
President Islam Karimov has declared publicly that around 100 people are put to death every year in Uzbekistan. AI had information concerning at least 22 death sentences and 11 executions in Uzbekistan in 2002. At least 12 executions are known to have been carried out in 2003, but the real total is in all probability much higher.
According to a statement by President Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan sentenced between 50 and 60 people to death in 2004. At least two executions took place in 2004.
On January 28, 2005 Uzbek President said it would take at least 2-3 years to abolish the death penalty in the country. Addressing the first joint session of Uzbek parliament's upper and lower houses, Karimov said: "The issue in question is not about introducing a moratorium on the death penalty as in some countries where death row inmates have been awaiting the execution of the punishment for many years. The issue here is about its total abolition."