A burned-out car after the clash, is seen on a street in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Friday.
Vasily Krestyaninov / AP
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Vasily Krestyaninov / AP
A burned-out car after the clash, is seen on a street in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Friday.
Vasily Krestyaninov / AP
MOSCOW – The former head of Kazakhstan’s counterintelligence and counterterrorism agency has been arrested on charges of plotting to overthrow the government after violent protest which the president has blamed on foreign-backed terrorists.
The arrest of Karim Masimov was announced on Saturday by the National Security Committee, which was headed by Masimov until he was sacked by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev this week.
Authorities said security forces killed 26 protesters during the unrest this week and 18 law enforcement officers died. More than 4,400 people have been arrested, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday.
Protests in the Central Asian country are the most widespread since Kazakhstan’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
The unrest began in the far west of the country as protests protested against steep price increases for liquefied petroleum gas widely used as a vehicle fuel. Protests spread to the country’s largest city, Almaty, where protesters occupied and burned government buildings.
At Tokayev’s request, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russian-led military alliance of six former Soviet states, authorized the sending of some 2,500 mostly Russian troops to Kazakhstan as a peacekeeping force.
Several forces are guarding government facilities in the capital Nur-Sultan, which “could partially release the forces of the Kazakh law enforcement agencies and redeploy them to Almaty for participation participating in the counter-terrorism operation,” according to a statement from Tokayev’s office.
Tokayev said on Friday that he had authorized security forces to shoot to kill those involved in the unrest. As of Saturday, there was no immediate report of an incident in Almaty. The Russian news agency Sputnik reported that police dispersed a protest and arrested people in the city of Aktau, while sporadic gunfire rang out in Kyzylorda.
No details have been released about what Masimov, the former head of the security service, allegedly did to constitute a plot to overthrow the government. The National Security Committee, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB, is responsible for counterintelligence, border protection services, and counter-terrorism operations.
Although the protests began with accusations of nearly doubling LPG prices earlier in the year, their spread and intense violence suggest they reflect widespread discontent in the Union republic. The former Soviet Union was run by the same party for more than 30 years.
Many protesters shouted “Gone old man,” referring to Nursultan Nazarbayev, who served as president from Kazakhstan’s independence until his resignation in 2019 and has anointed Tokayev as his successor.
Nazarbayev, who has been given the title “ebasy”, or leader of the nation, retains considerable power as head of the National Security Council. But Tokayev removed him from his position as head of the council amid unrest this week, possibly aimed at making concessions to the protesters.
Nazarbayev remained invisible during the chaos, but on Saturday, his spokesman said Nazarbayev was in the capital and “calls on everyone to rally around the president of Kazakhstan to overcome current challenges and ensure the integrity of our country.”
