A court in Kyrgyzstan has jailed three people convicted of orchestrating a bomb attack on China's embassy last year, a court spokesman said Wednesday.
At least three people were wounded when a vehicle driven by a suicide bomber exploded after ramming through a gate at the embassy in the capital of the Central Asian country in August 2016.
Khasamidin Ismailov was sentenced to 18 years in prison by the court in Bishkek on Tuesday, while Hikmatillo Abdulazhanov and Kunazim Mansirova were both given 10-year sentences, the spokesman told AFP.
All three defendants pleaded not guilty to charges of helping organise and finance the attack which was carried out by a man whom security services in Kyrgyzstan claimed was a member of an anti-Beijing Uighur separatist group.
Their lawyers have said they will appeal.
Kyrgyz authorities have also claimed, without offering proof, that the plot was hatched by Syria-based militants with ties to the ex-Soviet Muslim-majority country.
Chinese state media reported Tuesday that Kyrgyz border troops had taken part in a joint anti-terror exercise with their Chinese colleagues in the restive Uighur-populated region of Xinjiang, which borders ex-Soviet Central Asia.
Tajik leader in spotlight on 20th anniversary of end of civil war
Tajik strongman Emomali Rakhmon took centre-stage Tuesday as the Central Asian nation marked the 20th anniversary of the end of a civil war that cemented his grip on power.
State TV broadcast festivities in Vahdat, close to the capital Dushanbe, showing citizens holding aloft paintings of Rakhmon riding a white horse and wading through wheat fields.
Rakhmon, 64, speaking at the occasion … read more
