Uzbekistan extradites Canadian citizen to China

Uzbek authorities confirmed on Friday they have extradited a Canadian citizen to his native China, where he could be sentenced to death for alleged terrorist acts.

The Uzbek Interior Ministry announced the extradition in a web statement, but did not say when it occurred.

Earlier in the week, Foreign Affairs in Ottawa informed Huseyincan Celil's family it had received word that he had been extradited.

The Uzbek statement also said Celil's fingerprints matched those of a Turkish man named Guler Dilaver, wanted for murder, terrorism and kidnapping in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan.

A father of six, Celil, 37,was arrested in China in the mid-1990s. He escaped prison and was granted refugee statusfrom Turkey in 2001.

He became a Canadian citizen four years later, settling in Burlington, Ont.

Celil was sentenced in absentia for founding a political party to work on behalf of the Uighur people, a minority ethnic group in Xinjiang province.

Celil was detained in the Uzbekistan in March while visiting relatives of his wife, Kamila.

Parliamentary secretary Jason Kenny told the Hamilton Spectator earlier this week he would be willing to travel to China to secure Celil's release.