Uzbek government denies killing any civilians

The Uzbek government has denied killing a single civilian in Andijan but four days after what locals are calling "bloody Friday" first-hand accounts are emerging of a cold-blooded killing spree by security forces.

The Uzbek government has denied killing a single civilian in Andijan, but four days after what locals are calling "bloody Friday" first-hand accounts are emerging of a cold-blooded killing spree by security forces.

One eyewitness, who would not be named for fear of reprisals, told The Independent that he saw death squads killing civilians after the army opened fire on protesters in the eastern Uzbek city on Friday.

"It was around 5pm on Bainal Minal Street, a small street off [the main square] Prospekt Julpan, and a middle-aged man, who had apparently been shot in the leg, had hidden behind a clay oven where he was followed by a soldier.

"The soldier asked the injured man to stand up, which he did, and he shot him in the forehead."

Jabaron Jabarala, 30, was on his way to pick up his brother from his job at the car factory on Friday when the shooting started. When, with the help of other family members, he finally found his brother's body in the early hours of Saturday morning, he said "there were five bullet holes, three to his legs, one through the lung and one to the head".

The body lying close to a cafe on the square still had a piece of cloth wound around the upper leg.

"The sleeves of his shirt were blackened with blood," said Mr Jabarala. He said it seemed his brother had been shot in the leg, crawled away and tried to staunch the bleeding with the cloth, but was then killed by a shot to the back of his head.

This account sharply contradicts the claim of Uzbekistan's prosecutor general, made yesterday, that not one civilian had been killed. Rashid Kadyrov said that 169 had died, all "terrorists", apart from 30 soldiers, three women and two children who were among hostages killed by the rebels.

The developments came after Condoleeza Rice, the US Secretary of State, repeated her call for the need for openness and reform in country after meeting Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, in Washington.

The unrest, sparked by the trial of 23 Muslim businessmen, was blamed by President Islam Karimov on Islamic extremists. Residents and a local human rights activist said the uprising was prompted by local people protesting against poverty, corruption and Mr Karimov's hard line against Muslims.

As the grieving citizens of Andijan continued the grisly task of burying the dead, more families were coming forward to claim that loved ones had been hunted down and killed in a mopping-up operation by military death squads.

From five funerals visited by The Independent ­ held in private homes for fear of the security forces still flooding the city ­ in three cases the relatives said that the bodies had gunshot wounds to the head. In two cases, they claimed, the corpses showed gunshot wounds to the body and a single shot to the back of the head.

Eyewitnesses, rights activists and local doctors have claimed that up to 700 were killed in Andijan and across the Ferghana valley but that the death toll could climb higher.

Two young men, aged 24 and 17, said, independently of each other, that they saw about 500 bodies in the central morgue on Sunday. Other witnesses said another 500 were bodies laid out in rows in the grounds of School No 15, next to the morgue on Julpan Square.

Local people said they saw security forces dividing the bodies of women and children from men's corpses and loading them on to lorries early on Saturday.

The 17-year-old said that he saw the bodies of at least 50 children lying in the central morgue while searching for his own brother who is feared dead.