By Shamil Baigin

TOYTEPA, Uzbekistan, Oct 7 (Reuters) - A jailed Muslim cleric has died in custody in Uzbekistan and his father said he believed a series of mysterious injections given to him by prison officials were to blame.

Uzbek police and prison authorities could not be reached for comment on the allegations. Officials in the authoritarian Central Asian state have in the past acknowledged torture in jails but said they were working to eliminate the practice.

The imam, Shavkat Madumarov, 27, died in a detention centre in the Uzbek capital Tashkent on Sept. 14, three days after a court sentenced him to seven years in jail for extremism and anti-constitutional activities, his family said.

His family insists he was in good health before his arrest on Feb. 16. Madumarov told his trial of receiving injections while in custody, but it was not clear what they were for.

His death certificate, seen by Reuters, listed the cause of death as "HIV infection and anaemia". His father said a separate health report issued shortly before his son died showed he was also suffering from pneumonia and Hepatitis.

"It is certain, and I am confident, he was deliberately infected with AIDS," Madumarov's father Komiljon, a sturdy 60-year-old man with sun-parched skin and wearing a traditional white skullcap, told reporters on Wednesday.

It is unlikely that Madumarov could have developed AIDS so quickly but human rights activist Surat Ikramov said he believed the practice of injecting prisoners with infectious diseases was widespread.



PRISON INJECTIONS

"Relatives of those jailed on religious motives told me many times that injections with HIV infection are made in prisons, while many inmates are infected with tuberculosis," he said.

"This is done to intimidate, and the authorities do their utmost to cover it up. Such cases are numerous."

Human rights bodies say there are about 6,000 political and religious prisoners in the country. They say they have documented more than two dozen deaths from torture in jails in the last four years.

Madumarov said his son had to be brought to the court on a stretcher and was bound to his chair during the trial so as not to collapse.

"He told the court he was receiving injections after which he could not sleep and had a high temperature," he said.

"His body was brought home in a coffin," he said. "The prison sent eight minders accompanying it. They made me sign a paper vowing we would not open the coffin."

Uzbekistan is under the spotlight following the suppression of an uprising in May in the eastern town of Andizhan when troops killed 500 people, including many women and children, according to witnesses.

The authorities put the Andizhan death toll at 187, and have said most of the dead were "terrorists" paid by foreigners.

Madumarov, who preached in this tiny town 50 km (30 miles) south of Tashkent, left for Turkey in 2003 after the authorities said that radical Islamists were among his congregation.

He later lectured on Islam in Russia and was arrested in February shortly after his return to Uzbekistan.

President Islam Karimov, who has been in power since Soviet times and is supported by Russia and China, says tough measures are needed to prevent a spread of radical Islam in Uzbekistan.

Fifteen Uzbeks now standing trial in Tashkent have pleaded guilty of plotting the Andizhan riot, and human rights bodies said their confessions may have been obtained under torture.