Interior Ministry: Kyrgyz politician Atabayev caught with 20 kg of drugs, pleads guilty
BISHKEK. Oct 22 (Interfax) - Kyrgyz politician and newspaper editor-in-chief Akylbek Atabayev has been caught with over 20 kilograms of narcotics, the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry press service told Interfax on Tuesday.
"Officers of the Interior Ministry Main Drug Control Department have apprehended Chyiyr newspaper editor-in-chief Akylbek Atabayev, who introduced himself as an Akyikat (Justice) party member, with over 20 kilograms of drugs," it said.
"The detainee was a member of Bakiyev's Kurultai and, after the new authorities took office, a member of the Public Supervisory Board of the Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Corporation," the press service said.
The police were watching an organized criminal group mostly consisting of Tajik nationals and residents of southern Kyrgyzstan and dealing large quantities of narcotic drugs. The group was smuggling Afghan drugs from Tajikistan to southern Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek and the Chui region and sold them to CIS countries via criminal connections in Kazakhstan and Russia.
The department said the suspect was a political activist.
He was a member of the Kurultai (assembly) of Concord appointed under President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's quota in 2010, a member of the Public Supervisory Council of the Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Corporation appointed on March 6, 2012, the editor of the international art and literature magazine Aalam Kyrgyzdary (Kyrgyz Universe), a parliamentary candidate for the Akyikat party, a member of the Ak Zhol party (the ruling party in the Kurmanbek Bakiyev era), a deputy chairman of Eldik Kurultai (People's Assembly) appointed on April 16, 2014, the editor-in-chief of the sociopolitical newspaper Chyiyr and a professor at the Turkish Manas University in Kyrgyzstan.
"Plastic bags containing 10.4 kilograms of heroin, 1.83 kilograms of opium and 10.24 kilograms of Afghan chars were found in the examination of Atabayev," the Interior Ministry said.
A criminal inquiry was launched on counts of illegal production, acquisition, storage, transportation and sending with the intent to distribute, as well as illegal production and distribution of narcotics, psychotropic substances, their analogues and precursors.
"Atabayev pleaded guilty and told the officers that he owned the seized drugs and intended to sell them to third persons," the police said.
Experts estimated the value of the seized drugs at about $120,000 in Kyrgyzstan. The value could have grown to about $1 million in Russia.