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CORRUPTION

Corruption is so widespread in Uzbekistan that a report on police abuse would be incomplete without a discussion of corruption in the criminal justice system.241 Although defendants and their families are extremely reluctant to discuss it, some do resort to paying significant bribes to secure the freedom, or at least a reduction in sentence, of their relatives.

The mere mention of corruption with respect to the criminal justice process is enough to elicit harsh retribution. Defendants' family members in attendance at the August 1999 trial of persons accused of illegal religious activity in the Andijan Provincial Court recounted how one of the defendants, Nematullo Bobohonov, made general remarks critical of the corruption widespread in society. "The judge asked him for proof of such things. During the recess, the police beat Bobohonov to the point where his pulse stopped, very brutally. We saw with our own eyes that Bobohonov was bent over. The judge laughed at him and said, `Oh, you must have eaten something [bad]!'"242

One senior Tashkent attorney stated bluntly, "Judges earn extremely tiny salaries, and so justice costs money. If defendants can pay, they can get fewer years than the prosecutor asks for, and so there is an incentive to give the most severe sentences."243 This attorney went on to describe the average price paid by families to secure leniency. "If the sentence is from zero to five years, to cut one year costs two to three thousand dollars. If the sentence is from five to ten years, each year costs six to seven thousand dollars. The recent Supreme Court decision stating that sentences have been too short was actually the result of a battle with the procuracy over money."244

If the profit motive underlies the harsh sentences handed down by Uzbek courts, it also promotes the use of torture. Since police are nearly assured of obtaining self-incriminating testimony, or testimony from other witnesses, detainees and their families have little choice but to find the means to pay. Another lawyer described the case of her client, an underage, mentally handicapped boy held on suspicion of selling narcotics, and noted that police held the boy and intimidated him without registering his arrest because, "They were waiting for his parents to come and pay..."245 A woman who spoke on the condition of strict anonymity described one of her son's co-defendants, Bahodir F., who was acquitted. "The judges asked them for a million [soms], and they came up with 800,000 [approximately U.S. $2000]. The guy was working somewhere, and they sold everything they had. His wife told me they borrowed money from their friends and they gave that to the judge and her husband was set free."246 Lawyers also solicit bribes to be passed on to judges and prosecutors to have specific charges against the accused dropped, as recounted by one witness whose son confessed to drugs possession under torture.247 Another witness who requested anonymity, the mother of a young man accused, but later acquitted, of murder, described how a police interrogator came to her home in the days after her son was arrested to demand money in exchange for his release:

He came to my home and asked me if my parents were still living, and I said yes, my parents are alive, and I have a daughter as well. [He said] "You've got to marry your daughter off soon, and so you need money for that, but you also have to get your son out [of police custody], and it's very expensive. If you had five thousand dollars, then your son would be home tomorrow, but if you don't, then you better get used to the fact that we're going to put him in prison no matter what. If you tell anyone what I've said, then he'll get `the max' [vyshka, capital punishment]" and he made a gesture with his hands to illustrate this.248

After this conversation, police allegedly tortured the young man until he confessed to the murder; he later recanted his confession in court. Another young man, whose relatives were interviewed by Human Rights Watch, was not so fortunate: after being tortured for several days in police custody, he confessed to a murder for which he was convicted and sentenced to death. During his trial, according to his mother, the state-appointed lawyer instructed the family to prepare a bribe in order to avoid the death penalty:

The lawyer first said eight thousand [dollars]. I said to her, where am I going to get that kind of money? Gradually they came down to five thousand. My son said to me, "Mom, what are we going to do? Can't we find it somewhere? Let's ask people." But we couldn't get the money anywhere. The lawyer said that the judge agreed, that if we came up with five thousand... "Then," she said, "we'll give him an eighteen-year sentence."...And I said what should I give so much money for if he's still going to go to jail? For what?! Where is the proof? The lawyer didn't say anything, but then she said, "you better ask Allah."249

Darmon Sultanova, whose two sons, Oibek and Uigun Ruzmetov, were, according to their own accounts, severely tortured and sentenced to death in July 1999 by the Tashkent Provincial Court, recounted that she was solicited for a bribe when her sons' case was appealed to the Supreme Court:

On September 20, the Collegium of the Supreme Court was to review their case. But on September 15, five days before that trial was to take place, they had sent a letter to Tashkent prison, saying that that morning their case had been reviewed already, and that nothing had been changed. The collegium convened anyway, and within one hour they reviewed the cases of all eight defendants. And changed nothing. The lawyers were passive; they didn't even have a copy of the first court decision, and did not give me a copy of the second one...They [the lawyers] offered me a deal: if I would pay enough money they would alter the sentences of my sons to about ten years of imprisonment, and they would let my husband come home. They wanted me to pay three million soms for such a deal. I am selling everything I can, my gold teeth, and the house...250

Police, assured that they will not be held accountable for abusing detainees, make full use of torture in order to extort money from their victims. Mrs. Mamatkulova described to Human Rights Watch how police in Andijan persecuted her husband and son, both religious Muslims who attended Andijan's Jami mosque.

In April 1997, a policeman... came and threatened my husband, Makhmudjon, and demanded a large amount of money not to arrest him as a Wahabi. When my husband refused, the officer began to beat him. Then he and another six officers began to beat my husband, inside the house. They beat him with their fists and kicked him. He was lying in blood...I came in and saw my husband unconscious and in a pool of blood and we called an ambulance and took him to the hospital. He went to the hospital on April 11....The doctor's diagnosis was that he had head injuries and he was in shock, but he wrote nothing about the bruises...He came back to consciousness after about five or six hours and began to throw up. He told me, "They wanted money and when I refused, they began to beat me for no reason."251

Makhmudjon was left alone after his discharge from the hospital, although police threatened him with further torture if he complained about his treatment (see below). In October, 1998, police detained the couple's son, Mukhsin; witnesses allege that they planted hashish in his pocket. Police held him in the Andijan municipal police headquarters for ten days incommunicado. According to his mother,

During those ten days, an officer of the MVD came to the house and asked for a large amount of money. My son had 202,000 som to start a business, and the police took that...He was also charged with illegally changing dollars, but he only had som. The investigator told us about a month later, "if you bring 700 dollars, we will take off the hashish charge and we could release him, because the money changing charge is not much." We refused. He said, "if you don't bring it, your son will be tried."252

Three days after an Andijan Municipal Court sentenced her son to five years of imprisonment for narcotics possession, police again arrested her husband.

They arrested him at home, at noon while I and Mukhsin's wife went to meet with my son at the prison. Nine policemen came to the house in civilian clothes to arrest him....My sister was here during the search....Makhmudjon had a stroke after the trial. He did not confess in court....He was in prison for one more month [after the stroke], then they sent him to the Tashkent prison hospital.253

241 According to Transparency International, Uzbekistan scored ninety-four of a possible one hundred on the 1999 Corruption Perception index, tying with Honduras as the fifth most corrupt country in the world. Berlin, 26 October, 1999. 242 Human Rights Watch interview with Asaka, Andijan, May 18, 2000. 243 Human Rights Watch interview with lawyer A, name withheld, May 31, 1999. 244 Ibid. 245 Human Rights Watch interview with lawyer B, name withheld, June 8, 2000. 246 Human Rights Watch interview, name withheld, July 15, 1999. 247 Human Rights Watch interview, name withheld, May 12, 1999. 248 Human Rights Watch interview, name, place, and date withheld. 249 Human Rights Watch interview, name, place, and date withheld. 250 Human Rights Watch interview, Darmon Sultanova, November 2, 1999. In mid-1999, three million soms equaled approximately five thousand U.S. dollars. 251 Human Rights Watch interview with Mrs. Mamatkulova, Andijan, May 18, 2000. The term "Wahabi" is used in Uzbekistan to refer to anyone whose religious observance is deemed excessive, and therefore threatening, or who is suspected of following or having been associated with Muslim leaders critical of the government. 252 Human Rights Watch interview with Mamatkulova, Andijan, May 18, 2000. At that time, 202,000 som equaled roughly U.S. $310 dollars at the black market exchange rate. One thousand dollars (this amount added to the $700 the police demanded) is the bribe commonly demanded to dismiss minor charges. Although the Uzbek currency, the som, is not convertible, Uzbek citizens prefer to hold their savings in dollars due to inflation. 253 Human Rights Watch interview with Mrs. Mamatkulova, Andijan, May 18, 2000. The Andijan Regional Court sentenced Mamatkulov to thirteen years of imprisonment.

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