"Starting from January 1, 2008, the death penalty in Uzbekistan has been abolished. In addition, the right to sanction arrests has been delegated to courts starting from the New Year’s," the Uzbek Supreme Court told Interfax.

These decisions are based on the presidential decrees ’On the abolition of the death penalty in the Republic of Uzbekistan’ of August 1, 2005 and ’On delegating the right to sanction arrests to courts’ of August 8, 2005.