Kyrgyztan sentences three militants to death

BISHKEK, Oct 18 (Reuters) A Kyrgyz court has sentenced to death three men charged with taking part in an armed raid in the south of the Central Asian country earlier this year, a state prosecution official said today.

Because Kyrgyzstan has a moratorium on executions, the men will most likely be jailed indefinitely.

In May, an armed gang killed five people on the border with Tajikistan, ransacked two border posts, hijacked a car and seized weapons.

Kyrgyzstan blamed the attack on The Islamic Movement of Turkmestan, an extremist group banned in Central Asia.

The prosecution official, Ryskul Baktybayev, told Reuters the court in the southern city of Osh had also given a 10-year sentence to two other men, while their female accomplice received three years of labour in a special colony.

The attacks took place in the Tajik and Kyrgyz parts of the Ferghana Valley which is shared between Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The mountainous area is one of the main transit routes for drug smuggling from Afghanistan and has in the past been described by governments as a base for Islamist extremists.

REUTERS AB BST1845