‘Ill’ Uzbek diplomat on trial for treason

UZBEKISTAN’S former deputy ambassador to the UK has been put on trial for treason after claiming to be a spy during an apparent psychotic episode and suicide attempt.

He faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty in a case that calls into question the Uzbek leadership’s attempts to reform the repressive government of Islam Karimov, the late president. The closed proceedings started on Monday.

Kadyr Yusupov, 67, who was deputy head of mission at the London embassy from 1999 to 2002, threw himself under a train in the Tashkent underground in December but survived with broken ribs and a concussion.

He told police after the incident that he was a Western spy and was detained in hospital, but relatives said he was not in his right mind and had suffered episodes of severe schizophrenia.

The Uzbek National Security Service – previously accused of torturing critics of the government – was renamed the State Security Service and given a new director as part of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s efforts to liberalise and open the country for investment after Karimov’s death in 2016.

But Mr Yusupov’s son Babur told The Telegraph that security service interrogators repeatedly threatened his father with sexual violence against himself and female relatives, and denied him his anti-depressant medication for more than a month in detention.

Steve Swerdlow of Human Rights Watch said the case showed there were still “no-go zones” in the Uzbek reform process: “One seems to be the vast power of security services; the other seems to be the courts where they try these cases closed to the public.”

Conservative MP Greg Hands said that the “British Government are continuing to monitor this case closely”.

The State Security Service could not be reached for comment.