Cambodia deported 20 Chinese Uygurs, who were accused of committing crimes during riots in Xinjiang, back to China on Saturday.

File photo released by the government of Urumqi City in a press conference in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, shows a burnt car in the riot happened on July 5, 2009. [Xinhua Photo]

"We were implementing the immigration laws of the country. They came to Cambodia illegally. We had to apply our immigration law," Cambodian foreign ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said.

More than 200 people died during the riots in July. Chinese police said they have evidence that the separatist World Uyghur Congress led by Rebiya Kadeer masterminded the bloody riots.

The 20 Uygurs caught in Cambodia had been smuggled into the country and they applied for asylum at the UN refugee agency office in Phnom Penh.

The UN refugee agency condemned the deportation, saying it was driven by intense pressure from China, the BBC said.

But an official at the Cambodian Ministry of Interior claimed to the Global Times that it was "some Western media and NGOs" who were "ignoring our sovereignty and ordering us to do this and that."

He said those media and NGOs had been criticizing Cambodia ever since they started investigating the Uygurs' initiatives for entry.

The US, the UN and several rights groups urged Cambodia not to deport the group.

"The forced return of asylum-seekers without a full examination of their asylum claims is a serious breach of international refugee law," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees office said Sunday.

Liu Nanlai, vice director of the Chinese Society of International Law, told the Global Times that he disagreed.

"It is reasonable and legitimate for Cambodia to send back those illegal migrants," Liu said, adding that suspects who abscond their homeland to avoid punishment don't qualify as refugees.

"China has the jurisdiction of Chinese suspects. The Chinese judicial review will decide the suspects' crimes according to laws," Liu said, adding that China operates under the rule of law. "Any human rights organizations and individuals have no right to interfere."

"The international community would not abide criminals at large in another country after they violated laws in their own countries," said Li Wei, a security strategist at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

"The international refugee protection system should not be a haven for criminals to evade legal sanctions," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said last week, adding that the Uygurs in question were involved in crimes, and relevant Chinese authorities were verifying and investigating the situation.