TASHKENT - Uzbekistan's highest court found 15 men guilty on Monday of an Islamist terrorist plot in the town of Andizhan in May and sentenced them to between 14 and 20 years in prison.
In criticism likely to be echoed by Western countries, a human rights campaigner at the court in the capital Tashkent said the case had been a show trial used to cover up the massacre of civilians by government troops.
But hardline President Islam Karimov received a warmer reception in Moscow, where a newspaper said Russian President Vladimir Putin would pledge military help to quell any further unrest in the Central Asian state.
"The court has found the accused guilty... in particular of terrorism, attempts to overthrow the constitutional order, aggravated murder and the seizure of hostages," judge Bakhtyor Jamolov told the court.
Witnesses in Andizhan on May 13, including a Reuters reporter, said Uzbek troops fired at a crowd of men, women and children who had gathered in the main square after armed men broke 23 local businessmen out of jail.
Troops killed hundreds of people and shot dead some of the wounded, eyewitnesses have told Reuters. The authorities say 187 people died -- mainly "foreign-paid terrorists".
The 15 men on trial in Tashkent, who all pleaded guilty, stood with heads bowed inside a metal cage for five hours as the judge read a narrative supporting the official view of events.
He said the accused received "terrorist" training in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan and staged the uprising in Andizhan as part of a plot to set up an Islamic caliphate in Uzbekistan.
Jamolov also reiterated that Western media in Andizhan on May 13 helped the "terrorists". His summing up repeated what prosecutors had told the court and the accused had said in their confessions.
The trial, which started in September, featured dozens of witnesses who also supported the official line.
Dissenting Witness "Lied"
The only witness to testify that she saw troops opening fire on civilians, Makhbuba Zakirova, had lied, the judge said.
"The court has decided that Zakirova intentionally gave false evidence against the state as she sympathises with the Akromists," Jamolov said, using the authorities' term for what they say was a terrorist cell in Andizhan.
Visited 10 days ago by Reuters in Andizhan, Zakirova said she was now too scared to talk about her testimony.
Andrea Berg, a researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the trial raised serious concerns.
"It was hard to believe that some pressure was not put on the defendants," she told reporters outside the court. "We think this was a show trial."
Berg noted that no relatives of the accused were allowed into the courtroom, which instead was filled with men who had been brought there in a bus.
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