The Supreme Court of Kyrgyzstan began retrial of the criminal case under newly discovered evidence against the human rights activist Azimzhan Askarov, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment.
The review was postponed due to the fact that representatives of the state prosecution were not familiar with additions of the defenders of Azimzhan Askarov to the cassation appeal. As a result, the hearing was postponed to April 6.
On December 2, 2019, the Supreme Court decriminalized a number of counts and commuted the punishment of the human rights defender under certain articles. However, the main article of the charge «Complicity in Murder» of the Criminal Code, under which Azimzhan Askarov received the life sentence, remained.
Azimzhan Askarov is accused of inciting ethnic hatred and murder of a policeman during the June events in the south of the republic in 2010.
