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Kyrgyzstan Hands over Two Suspects in Chinese
Diplomat's Murder
ALMATY, Aug 9 (AFP) - Two men
suspected of killing a
senior Chinese diplomat in Kyrgyzstan's capital
Bishkek
have been handed over to China, ITAR-TASS reported
Friday.
Both ethnic Uighurs, the two men are allegedly active
members of an underground Uighur separatist
organisation, the news agency reported.
The Chinese diplomat and his driver were gunned down
in the centre of Bishkek at the end of June, in an
attack which local officials speculated may have
involved Muslim separatists from China's Xinjiang
region.
Kyrgyz officials said in July that three ethnic Uighur
Chinese nationals had been detained on suspicion of
being linked to the shooting.
But they also said at the time that the men would be
not be handed over to the Chinese authorities, but
tried in Bishkek.
A small number of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang, which
shares a border with Kyrgyzstan, have in recent years
waged an intermittent campaign of violence to campaign
for an independent state of East Turkestan in the
region.
The separatist campaign is now based mainly in
Kyrgyzstan and neighbouring Kazakhstan, also in
central Asia.
China insists that separatists in Xinjiang have links
to the al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan and should be
dealt with as part of the US-led "war against
terrorism".
This has been rejected by the United States, and human
rights groups have expressed concern that Beijing is
using the anti-terrorism campaign as an excuse to
repress even peaceful dissent among the predominantly
moderate Uighur population.
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