Russia Deports Uzbek Asylum Seeker

Yulya Pigarina, an official at the Moscow transit camp for foreigners where Uzbek national Rustam Muminov was awaiting deportation, confirmed to RFE/RL today that Muminov was no longer at the facility.

"He has already been expelled to Uzbekistan based on a decision by the Moscow prosecutor's office," Pigarina said. "I know he has been expelled. When it happened, I don't know."

Muminov was arrested in Moscow on October 17 on charges of violating residency laws.

He had moved to the Russian capital after a court in the central Lipetsk Oblast ruled in September against his extradition to Uzbekistan and ordered his release.

Muminov was first arrested in February 2006 on an Uzbek warrant. Authorities in Tashkent claim he is a member of a banned extremist religious group and that he was involved in an uprising in the eastern city of Andijon that prompted a deadly response by authorities.

The Uzbek government has claimed that fewer than 200 people died, while rights groups allege that several times that number of peaceful demonstrators were mowed down by security forces and evidence of the massacre covered up by authorities.