Kazakhstan detains Uzbek wanted on terror charges

ALMATY, April 23 (Reuters) - Kazakh police have detained a man wanted in neighbouring Uzbekistan on suspicion of taking part in a riot in the Uzbek town of Andizhan in 2005, a Kazakh police spokesman said on Wednesday.

The West condemned Uzbekistan in May 2005 for its handling of the Andizhan events where witnesses said hundreds of people were killed when state troops opened fire on unarmed protesters. Uzbekistan blamed the violence on Islamist rebels.

On Wednesday, Kazakh police said the Uzbek man, detained on Sunday in the Kazakh financial capital Almaty during a raid on his apartment, is accused at home of taking part in acts of terror and attacking law enforcement agents in Andizhan.

"He was accused in Uzbekistan on various counts for taking part in the Andizhan events," a spokesman said, adding the man had applied for refugee status at the United Nations office in Kazakhstan earlier this month.

The arrest was announced hours after Uzbek President Islam Karimov completed his official visit to Kazakhstan, which shares a long border with Uzbekistan.

The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Kazakhstan confirmed the case and identified the man as Rafik Rakhmonov.

"He registered in April as an asylum seeker," said Gelya Rerikh, a UNHCR spokeswoman in Kazakhstan. "He is in detention now and the UNHCR is in contact with the Kazakhstan government to avoid his extradition."

Rerikh could not say if Rakhmonov denied any wrongdoing.

Karimov, in power since 1989, is criticised in the West for not tolerating dissent and violating basic liberties. The U.N. torture watchdog accused Uzbek police and prison staff of the "routine use of torture" in a November 2007 report.

Karimov's government says 187 people -- mainly "terrorists" and security forces -- died in Andizhan during what he described then as an attempted coup by Islamist extremists. (Additional reporting by Olzhas Auyezov; Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Janet Lawrence)