Fugitive ex-Kyrgyz leader got Belarusian passport with fake name — report

13.11.2023, 16:23 exclusive.kz

The fugitive former Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev and his family members have been granted Belarusian passports under new fake names, an investigation by independent Belarusian journalists has found.

Bakiyev was overthrown in a popular uprising in 2010. He and his family fled to Belarus and have been living there ever since.

The Alliance of Belarus Investigators said that under Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s order, Bakiyev received a Belarusian passport in August 2010. Later, Lukashenko granted him another passport in which Bakiyev is named ‘Zakir Saliyev’.

Several other members of Bakiyev’s family have also got two Belarusian passports each – one with their real names and another with fake ones, said the report which was published last week.

This allows the Bakiyevs to freely travel around the world. According to the report, Bakiyev and his family members have made at least 277 foreign trips out of Belarus since moving there.

Bakiyev, his eldest son Maksim and some of the ex-president’s brothers are wanted by Kyrgyz authorities and are under international arrest warrants.

Bakiyev has been sentenced to 30 years in jail in absentia in Kyrgyzstan for corruption.

During his five-year rule Bakiyev, two of his six brothers and his son Maksim became the most influential people in the country. In close conjunction with the crime world, they controlled all lucrative businesses.

Under Bakiyev’s rule the country saw regular political murders, including those of four MPs, journalist Gennadyy Pavlyuk and crime boss Rysbek Akmatbayev.

Bakiyev successor Almazbek Atambayev accused him of turning the country’s power-wielding bodies into “semi-criminal organisations”, including departments that were in charge of “physically removing or intimidating unwanted people”.

Bakiyev was toppled in a wave of opposition protests in April 2010. The unrest took 87 lives.

Kyrgyzstan has made several failed attempts to secure Bakiyev’s extradition from Belarus.