Uzbekistan sentences four for extremist activities

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — A court in Surkhandarya region has sentenced four members of a group convicted of terrorist and extremist offenses to 8 years and 6 months in prison each. The State Security Service of Uzbekistan reported the case.

According to investigators, the defendants were influenced by extremist ideas, distributed materials produced by terrorist organizations and planned to participate in armed conflicts.

Investigators found that a 23-year-old resident of Sariasiy district went to Makhachkala for work in 2023, where he became close to an acquaintance known as Muhammad. Influenced by radical content on social media, he changed his views. They later recruited a 21-year-old fellow resident and began preparing to travel to Syria.

To organize the trip, one of the participants took part of the money his family had kept abroad without permission. The group traveled from Makhachkala to Moscow, planning to fly from there to Istanbul and then travel to Syria. A conflict broke out among the participants in Moscow, after which two of them returned.

According to the State Security Service, Muhammad later committed a murder in Kazan and was prosecuted in Russia.

The 21-year-old group member was deported to Uzbekistan, where a court sentenced him to seven years in prison under articles related to extremism.

However, according to the case materials, the group's activities continued. Two more residents of Sariasiy district, aged 27 and 25, joined the group. They distributed the ideas of terrorist organizations and discussed participation in armed conflicts.

In 2025, investigators said the group's activity intensified. Its members planned to commit crimes against law enforcement officers in Makhachkala and attempted to recruit another young man into the group through the Internet.

The group was detained during a joint operation by Uzbekistan's State Security Service and Russian law enforcement agencies. Investigators collected evidence confirming the defendants' involvement in the alleged crimes.

The Sariasiy district court found the four defendants guilty under articles related to terrorism and extremism and sentenced each of them to 8 years and 6 months in prison.