| Uzbekistan’s Supreme Court on Monday convicted and sentenced to death a man with ties to al-Qaida for two deadly bombings in neighboring Kyrgyzstan. Azizbek Karimov, 25, was convicted of organizing and carrying out the bombings at a market in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, in December 2002, and at a Western Union office in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh in May 2003. Eight people died and many were injured in the two attacks, Judge Nuritdin Tuhliev said in announcing the verdict. Karimov was also convicted of being a member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, or IMU, a terrorist organization linked to al-Qaida that in 2001 fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan against the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance. |