STOCKHOLM (AP) — An Uzbek imam who fled his country after criticizing the country's government and was accused of terrorism was in critical condition Friday after being shot in a small town in Sweden, police said.
Obidkhon Sobitkhony was shot in the head Wednesday in Stromsund, where he lived, and was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries. No suspects had been arrested, police said.
The 54-year-old imam, better known as Obid-kori Nazarov, criticized the steps Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s government took in the late 1990s to tighten control over Muslim institutions. Authorities in Uzbekistan accused him of forming a terrorist organization.
In 1998, Nazarov fled to neighboring Kazakhstan. He was granted asylum in Sweden in 2006.
Investigators said they found the handgun used in the shooting in an abandoned bag near the site of the attack. They declined to speculate on a motive, but said they were working on the case together with the Swedish Security Service, which typically gets involved in investigations related to national security, counterespionage or counterterrorism.
Exiled Uzbek human rights advocate Mutabar Tajiboeva, who now lives in France, said in a statement Friday that the shooting was ordered by Karimov’s government.
Tajiboeva, whose rights group uncovered widespread human rights violations in Uzbekistan, was given an eight-year jail sentence in 2006 on more than a dozen charges and was released in 2008 following international pressure.
There were no reports on Nazarov on the websites of Uzbek state-controlled media, and Uzbek officials were not immediately available for comment.
International media, including The Associated Press, have been continually denied access to the authoritarian ex-Soviet nation.
