(BISHKEK) - The European Union on Thursday condemned the murder of a prominent journalist known for his opposition to Uzbekistan's authoritarian regime, who was gunned down in neigbhouring Kyrgyzstan.

"The EU strongly condemns the murder of Alisher Saipov," said a statement released in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek by the embassy of EU member Germany.

"The EU deplores Mr Saipov's death and praises his work," it added.

"The EU urges the Kyrgyz authorities to hold an immediate and thorough investigation into the death of Mr Saipov, arrest the perpetrators of this act and bring them to justice."

Saipov, a critic of Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov and editor of the Uzbek-language Politika newspaper, was shot dead October 24 in the southern Kyrgyz town of Osh.

Saipov, a Kyrgyz citizen of Uzbek origin, regularly smuggled issues of Politika into Uzbekistan, where the media is harshly controlled by the country's authoritarian regime.

Official newspapers there had dubbed Saipov, who was 25, a "traitor to the Uzbek people."

His colleagues have dismissed as propaganda claims by the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry on Tuesday that Saipov had links to Islamist militants.

Uzbekistan, a resource-rich Central Asian country, has been ruled with an iron fist by Karimov for two decades.

Presidential elections are due in the country on December 23. No opposition parties will participate and their leaders are all in exile.

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