AN UZBEK court sentenced a former Soviet Army soldier to 18 years in prison yesterday for belonging to an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group — almost two decades after his family was told he had died a war hero in Afghanistan.

Kosim Ermatov’s parents in eastern Uzbekistan had even received a death certificate and a coffin, which they buried with honour after being told that he had died in combat more than 18 years ago.

But then in January this year Ermatov, now 38, was arrested in the Pakistani city of Karachi, where he lived with his wife and five children.

It transpires that Ermatov, who worked as a truck driver in the Soviet army, was the only survivor of an attack that killed 47 soldiers in 1986.

He claims that he was taken prisoner by the Mujahidin who were fighting against the Soviet occupation and spent the next few years in their hands. After the end of the war in 1989, he went to Pakistan and, in 1992, met his father in the capital, Islamabad.

His father tried to persuade him to go home to Uzbekistan, but Ermatov refused, saying he feared persecution under the post-Soviet regime of President Karimov, who is accused of using the War on Terror as an excuse to persecute political opponents and moderate Muslims.

Ermatov admitted joining the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) in 1996 and serving as a driver and cook for the organisation, but he said that he left the group in 2001 and had moved to Pakistan after US-led forces defeated the Taleban regime in Afghanistan.

He was extradited to his native Uzbekistan earlier this year and convicted yesterday of terrorism, religious extremism, being a mercenary and being a member of the IMU. He had faced a maximum sentence of death.

Defence lawyers say that the prosecutors had failed to prove Ermatov’s guilt, and have demanded his release and repatriation to Afghanistan, where he claims that he is now a citizen.

“The sentence is far too harsh, taking into account Ermatov is not a citizen of Uzbekistan and left the IMU in 2001 and never committed a crime in Uzbekistan,” one defence lawyer, Akbarjon Umarov, was quoted as saying.

He said that his client would appeal.

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