Theo Van Boven (UN) denounces the execution of nine inmates

Uzbekistan  GENEVA - A United Nations human rights expert said Monday   he is worried that Uzbekistan continues to execute people based on   confessions allegedly extracted under torture.

Theo van Boven, the U.N. expert on torture, said he <strongly deplores>   that at least nine prisoners have been executed despite requests from the   U.N. Human Rights Committee for a stay while it considered their appeals.

In the most recent case, Azizbek Karimov and Yusuf Zhumayev were reportedly   executed secretly on Aug. 10. The U.N. committee was considering allegations   from the two men that their trials were unfair and that they were tortured   and ill-treated in pretrial detention.

Zhumayev was convicted in April 2003 of murdering his sister-in-law, as   well as a niece and nephew. However, relatives said he had no motive for the crime.
   They said he was hung upside down and beaten and also tortured with   electric shocks, and Zhumayev testified about the abuse at his trial,   according to the human rights group Amnesty International.

Karimov was sentenced to death in February on charges including terrorism   and belonging to a religious extremist group. It was also alleged that he   was tortured while in pretrial detention.

<The Special Rapporteur appeals to the Government to ensure strict   observance of its international human rights obligations,> the United   Nations said in a statement.

There was no immediate reaction from the Uzbek Foreign Ministry.

 Van Boven visited Uzbekistan in December 2002 and reported that torture in   custody was <institutionalized, systematic and rampant> in the former Soviet   Republic.

Uzbek officials say they have drafted a plan to address the problem. Van Boven said he wanted to see the government take notice of the urgent  appeals issued by U.N. human rights monitors.

It should introduce a moratorium on executions and consider abolishing the  death penalty entirely, he said.

UN sleuth hits U.S. ally Uzbekistan on executions

      GENEVA, Sept 13- The United Nations special investigator on torture on Monday accused Uzbekistan, a close U.S. ally in the "war on terror", of executing nine prisoners despite appeals from a U.N. human rights body to hold back.

 A statement from the official, Dutch law professor Theo van Boven,  followed several similar critiques of the former Soviet Central Asian  state's human rights record from U.N. bodies and independent international  organisations.

In his comments, issued through the office of the U.N. High Commissioner  for Human Rights, van Boven said he "strongly deplores" the Uzbek  government's action and called for a moratorium on the death penalty in the  country.

He said he understood the two latest to be executed -- one accused of murder and the other of terrorism and belonging to a religious extremist group -- had died on August 10. Both, like others executed in former Soviet Uzbekistan which is still ruled by its communist era leader President Islam Karimov, had argued at their trials that confessions had been extracted by torture, U.N. officials say.

 Last year, the U.N. Committee on Human Rights called on Uzbekistan, which says it is fighting "Islamic terrorists" linked with foreign networks,  to suspend all executions while it looked into their cases, and those of other condemned men.

Van Boven said he now had reports that at least nine people had been executed since he issued a report early last year on a visit to the Central Asian state at the end of 2002.   He named the two executed in August as Azizbek Karimov, who was no relation to the president and had been accused of killing three family  members, and Yusuf Khumayev.

 President Karimov rejects criticism of his harsh treatment of opponents and jailing of thousands of dissident Muslims. He says secular rule in the country is endangered by militants seeking to set up a hardline Islamic state.