BISHKEK, May 27 (Itar-Tass) - The organisers of the Andijan unrest, as well as wanted criminals have been exposed among 539 Uzbek refugees who during the disturbances on May 14 crossed into neighbouring Kyrgyzstan and settled in a temporary tent camp there.

Sources in the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry told Itar-Tass on Thursday the police found out the criminals after taking “filtration measures” among the refugees.

A total of 20 refugees have been arrested. Police have disclosed one of them as one of the most active organisers and participants in the Andijan riot. One person suspected of committing crime in the Kyrgyz territory was also found. It has been established that he was one of the inmates of the Andijan investigation prison who were freed during the riot. The Kyrgyz side intends to hand them over to the Uzbek side after the investigation is over.

The rest of the arrested Uzbek refugees, the Kyrgyz police said, will most likely be released, as “their complicity in the crimes in the Kyrgyz and Uzbek territories has not been proved.”

The 539 refugees, most of them men, managed to cross into the Suzak district of Kyrgyzstan, in spite of the fact that the border was closed on both sides.

Kyrgyz authorities were forced to create a temporary tent camp for them and provide to them medical aid, food and drinking water. Six of the refugees had gunshot wounds. The wounded claimed the Uzbek military shot them in the back, and this fact is being verified now.