A week after Andrei Shelkovenko was allegedly tortured to death by police, his mother refuses to bury his body -- insisting on an independent autopsy to prove he didn't hang himself as authorities claim.
Her persistence, backed up with a lot of international pressure, has forced Uzbekistan's government to take what rights activists say are unprecedented steps to investigate the death of an alleged torture victim and for the first time allow foreign experts to examine the body.
Uzbekistan has long been accused of rights abuses. A UN report last year found torture was "systematic" in prisons. New York-based Human Rights Watch said Shelkovenko's death was the fifth in police custody it has documented since May last year.
On Thursday, US and Canadian experts are due to observe an autopsy of Shelkovenko's body, which is being kept in a hospital morgue in Tashkent. In addition, Uzbek authorities have formed a special investigative team to probe the death. It had its first meeting Wednesday.
"We were promised access to each and every step of the way," said Mjusa Sever, director of the US-based rights group Freedom House.
Activists praised the government's apparent openness in its handling of Shelkovenko's death, but say it's too early to judge whether those responsible will face punishment.
Uzbek officials have been closely monitoring the US response to the prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq and the determination of US authorities to punish those responsible for those cases may have influenced Tashkent's handling of its own case of alleged detainee abuse, Sever said.
Other issues may also have influenced the Uzbek government. The US is set to decide soon on whether to continue giving aid to this Central Asian nation. Washington has linked the aid to an improvement in human rights.
The US State Department said Friday that the recurring deaths in detention were "unacceptable" and called for a "swift, transparent and professional investigation" into Shelkovenko's death, demanding those responsible be held accountable.
Shelkovenko, 36, was arrested April 23 on suspicion of committing a robbery that led to murder. His sister Viktoria, 24, was able to see him six days later, and said his face was swollen and he had a broken jaw and other injuries he alleged were the result of three days of torture that included being beaten with clubs and burned with cigarettes.
Authorities maintain Shelkovenko hanged himself in his cell at the Gazalkent police station and that his body was returned to his family without any other injuries other than those inflicted from the hanging.
However, photographs of the body taken by Human Rights Watch do not show injury to the front of his neck, such as would have been inflicted in a hanging. Instead, the pictures show open, bloody head wounds and other bruises and abrasions. The body also had black marks and swelling in the genital area.
Shelkovenko's mother, Lyudmila Bochkaryova, has been pushing for an independent investigation into her son's death -- a move, she says, that has not been welcomed by the authorities.
She has received phone threats, been confronted by officials and had plainclothes agents follow her family, Bochkaryova said. She has also been pressured to quickly bury Shelkovenko's body.
"They pressured me to have a funeral," Bochkaryova said at the family's apartment in Gazalkent, an industrial town about 60km northeast of the capital Tashkent. But "without an autopsy ... he won't be buried."
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