Tajikistan convicts two ex-Guantanamo detainees

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Tajikistan convicts two ex-Guantanamo detainees
18 Aug 2007 12:17:30 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Roman Kozhevnikov

DUSHANBE, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Tajikistan handed down
17-year prison sentences on Saturday to two former
Guantanamo Bay detainees convicted of fighting alongside
Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

Both men were detained by the U.S. military in Afghanistan
in 2001 and held in the Guantanamo military prison for five
years before being returned to their home country to face
charges of being mercenaries in a foreign country.

A Supreme Court judge said the men had belonged to the
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a militant group active in
Central Asia in the late 1990s. IMU guerrillas fought
alongside Taliban forces in Afghanistan but the group was
largely destroyed by the U.S.-led military campaign there
in 2001.

"Tajik citizens Mukit Vokhidov and Rukhniddin Sharopov
were found guilty of mercenary activity and illegally
crossing state borders," presiding judge Musammir Urakov
told reporters.

He said the men would serve their sentences in a penal
colony.

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