UN refugee agency reacts to Tashkent's criticism

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has denied claims by the Uzbek authorities that it is harbouring alleged criminals and terrorists.

"We are absolutely not in the business of protecting criminals or terrorists as was claimed by the Uzbek prosecutor [general]," said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for UNHCR, speaking from Geneva on Wednesday.

"Under international refugee law, people guilty of serious crimes are explicitly excluded from refugee status," Colville added.

His comments came one day after the office of Uzbekistan's prosecutor general accused the refugee agency of protecting terrorists and criminals, while referring to a recent airlift of more than 400 Uzbek asylum seekers from Kyrgyzstan and a refusal to extradite those wanted by Tashkent.

The Uzbek prosecutor general's office said in a statement that the decision by UNHCR and the Kyrgyz authorities not to extradite the Uzbeks who fled to Kyrgyzstan following the mass killings in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan in May but instead to evacuate them to a third country as refugees, contradicted the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. The statement added that it also ignored Kyrgyz refugee law that states the convention should not be applied in relation to individuals that have committed grave crimes of a non-political nature.