Huseyincan Celil (born March 1, 1969; in Uyghur: ھۈسەيىنجان جېلىل; in Chinese: 赛因江·贾里力) is a Uyghur holding Chinese and Canadian citizenship. He was the subject of a controversial court case in 2006 when he was arrested in Uzbekistan, extradited to China against the objections of the Canadian government, and sentenced to life in prison on charges of terrorism. The conviction was based on his supposed identification with a man called Guler Dilaver, who had been wanted in Kyrgyzstan for terrorism charges.
Names
Celil has been referred to by a variety of names in the media. He and his family use the name Huseyincan Celil, which appears in his Canadian passport. Amnesty International's press releases typically omit the suffix "can", referring to him simply as Huseyin Celil, or alternatively as Husein Dzhelil. Police in Uzbekistan, China, and Kyrgyzstan all claim that Huseyincan Celil is in fact an alias for Guler Dilaver, a man whose name appears on Interpol watchlists; the Uzbek embassy in London also stated in an open letter to Amnesty International that he had used a variety of other aliases such as Hussein Calil and Calil Husan Siddikovich. A variety of transcriptions of his given name Huseyincan have also appeared in the Chinese media; one common transliteration, Yushanjiang, can be misinterpreted as a Han Chinese-style name Yu Shanjiang (that is, surname Yu, given name Shanjiang); official English translations of Chinese government statements may refer to him as such. As a result, one Canadian newspaper, in turn, openly complained about the use of this "Chinese name" to refer to him, accusing Chinese officials of "refus[ing] to recognize the name on his Canadian passport ... instead call[ing] him by his Chinese name, Yu Shanjiang".
Family and early life
In 1994, while Celil was living in Xinjiang, he was arrested, charged with several murders and terrorism-related activities, and imprisoned by Chinese police. He escaped from China by way of Kyrgyzstan and Turkey, and sought asylum in Ankara through the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. After the UNHCR granted him refugee status pursuant to the Geneva Convention, the Government of Canada designated him a refugee and gave him citizenship. He arrived in Canada in 2001 and acquired Canadian citizenship, living in Hamilton, Ontario. He lived in Canada with his wife, Kamila Telendibayeva, and three of his six children. He says the Chinese government prevented his other three children from emigrating to Canada. As of June 2006, his wife Kamila was reported to be pregnant with their seventh child. Celil's mother's name is Shalehan Spander; he also has a 49-year-old brother Sarmeti and a 39-year-old sister Heyrigul.
Rearrest
Extradition from Uzbekistan
In early 2006 Celil travelled to Uzbekistan with his wife to visit her relatives and to try to get his other three children out of China. This trip ended in his deportation to China. On March 27, 2006 Uzbek police arrested, detained, and held Celil incommunicado while in Tashkent, attempting to renew his visitor's visa. An Uzbek government spokesman said Celil and Dilaver are the same person. Dilaver, a man born in 1955, had been placed on the Interpol watch list by the Kyrgyz government in 2002 after he attacked a Chinese delegation from Xinjiang. Uzbekistan's embassy in London stated that Celil's fingerprints matched those Kyrgyzstan had on file for Dilaver when he was arrested there on May 10, 1998. The Canadian government requested Celil's release and return to Canada, but the Uzbek government deported him to China, where he had already been convicted in absentia and could face the death penalty. Chris MacLeod, the Celil family's lawyer, criticized the Uzbek government for detaining a Canadian citizen without notifying his respective embassy, and called on the Canadian government to be more forceful in protecting the rights of its overseas citizens.