KAZAKHSTAN: CRIMINAL INVESTIGATORS INTERVIEW

UNCLAS ASTANA 001966 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/CEN, DRL E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM KCRM KZ SUBJECT: KAZAKHSTAN: CRIMINAL INVESTIGATORS INTERVIEW OPPOSITION LEADERS REF: ASTANA 1872 (NOTAL) ¶1. (U) Sensitive but unclassified. Not for public Internet. ¶2. (SBU) SUMMARY: Three opposition leaders met separately with criminal investigators on September 29 in connection with charges that they harbored a fugitive in a murder case. Authorities named one of the three, OSDP Deputy Chairman Amirzhan Kosanov, a witness, rather than a suspect -- a move Kosanov believes was an attempt to split the opposition. The case has received very little media coverage in recent days. END SUMMARY. ¶3. (SBU) We spoke separately on October 2 with three of the four Kazakhstani opposition figures who are the subject of a criminal investigation launched by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on September 24 -- Azat party leader Bulat Abilov, National Social Democratic Party (OSDP) Deputy Chairman Amirzhan Kosanov, and Shanyrak movement head Asylbek Kozhakhmetov. The fourth, Alga party Chairman Vladimir Kozlov, is in Warsaw, reportedly attending the OSCE's annual Human Dimension Implementation Meeting. ¶4. (SBU) As reported in reftel, the four leaders are under investigation for harboring a fugitive from justice, a businessman named Yesentay Baisakov, who fled to Ukraine in ¶2003. The authorities maintain that Baisakov, who was previously linked to the now defunct Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) opposition party, is a suspect in a 2001 murder in Pavlovdar. The criminal case against the opposition leaders is apparently based on the fact that they signed letters in 2005 and 2007 in support of Baisakov's successful political asylum claim in Ukraine. ¶5. (SBU) Abilov, Kosanov, and Kozhakhmetov told us that they each met with criminal investigators on September 29. Abilov was informed that he would be interviewed as a suspect, in the presence of a defense lawyer. When Abilov explained that his attorney was out of the country, the investigators agreed that the interview could be postponed until October 6. Abilov maintained to us that he believes the authorities are "inclined to see this case through to the end." ¶6. (SBU) Kozhakhmetov informed us that he was interviewed by investigators as a suspect, with his lawyer present. He signed a document which compels him to notify the authorities if he leaves Almaty. (NOTE: Kozhakhmetov contended to the Deputy Chief of Mission on September 26 that that there are no legal grounds for the case against the opposition leaders, since the law defines "harboring" as providing physical shelter, which they did not give to Baisakov. END NOTE.) ¶7. (SBU) Kosanov told us that investigators came to see him at the OSDP's main office. He was interviewed as a witness, not as a suspect. The investigators were principally interested in determining who initiated the letters in support of Baisakov. Kosanov told them that he did not remember. The investigators seized a record book of outgoing correspondence. ¶8. (U) The case has received very little media coverage in recent days. There was only a small article about it in the October 2 edition of the weekly opposition newspaper "Svoboda Slova," which included a brief interview with Kosanov. In the interview, he maintained that the authorities named him as a witness rather than as a suspect to try to cause a split the opposition, but this plan had failed in its aim. HOAGLAND