Uznews.net – People who were placed in the Angren town police department’s detention centre on 24 March when Muzaffar Tuychiyev, 30, was tortured to death gave their evidence at the trial concerning this case and detailed how officers tortured him, extorting large sums of money from him.

Human rights activist Salomatoy Boymatova of the Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan said that two men who were under arrest at the detention centre during the murder of Tuychiyev had given evidence at the trial which is under way at the Tashkent Region court.

“I heard a man shout and through a hole in the door I saw officer Abdukasym Islamailov (one of the four officers in the dock) beat Muzaffar Tuychiyev. I later saw Tuychiyev lie on a bed with hands cuffed,” Boymatova quoted one of the witnesses called Karim Mirzaboyev.

He and Tuychiyev managed to talk through the hole in the door and Tuychiyev told him that police officers had seized 370,000 sums, $50 and a mobile phone from him, demanding he give them more money because they knew he organised people’s employment in neighbouring Kazakhstan and also worked there.

“Muzaffar told me that they forced him to wear a gas mask and suffocated him and had beaten him up, showering him with cold water to freeze him. Muzaffar was shaking, maybe, because had had high temperature,” Mirzaboyev said.

Although he was also convicted and is serving his sentence in a prison in Navoiy Region, Mirzaboyev was not afraid of telling the trial that he saw another officer Aziz Ahmedov at the detention centre that night.

He said that he had seen other officers whose first names were Aziz, Akbar and Hurshid who are not involved in this court trial enter Muzaffar’s cell.

Angren police officers Aziz Ahmedov, Jahongir Ganiyev, Dilmurad Peysenov and Abdukasym Islailov are being tried for this murder at the Tashkent Region court.

After Mirzaboyev, Sanjar Goipov who is now serving his term at Tashkent’s prison No 1 also gave evidence as a witness at the trial.

Goipov said that officer Abdukasym Ismailov came to his cell that night and warned him that he should not tell anyone what he heard or saw. He added that he had heard sounds coming out from Muzaffar’s cell that were similar to sounds produced by people who are beaten up with gas masks on.

Goipov noted that he had seen an officer called Hurshid come out with a gas mask from Tuychiyev’s cell.

Police driver Doniyor Hasanov who drove Tuychiyev to the police station told the trial that the suspect was covered in blood and his hands were cuffed on the night of 24 March.

Ambulance doctor Nazirjon Nazarov who examined Tuychiyev’s body on 25 March said that the body had haematomas but the bones were not broken.

Muzaffar Tuychiyev left his wife with three kids and his youngest child was born after his death.