Kyrgyz president denies killed crime boss helped his rise to power

25.01.2024, 14:40 exclusive.kz

President Sadyr Japarov has denied that he came to power with help from the powerful crime boss who was killed in a special service operation last October.

Japarov alleged that “false information” about his links with the crime world was spread by his opponents and the US-funded Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz service Azattyk.

“They planned to portray me in a negative light before the public in order to take me out of the game before the [2020 presidential] election,” he said in an interview with the official Kabar news agency on Thursday.

Japarov rose to power following the October 2020 protests over disputed parliamentary elections. It is widely known that the bid for power by Japarov and his close associate Kamchybek Tashiyev was backed by crime baron Kamchy Kolbayev, who unleashed armed mobs to intimidate the duo’s rivals.

Tashiyev currently heads the Kyrgyz security service.

In early October last year, the security service shot Kolbayev dead as a result of a special operation. The move was followed by a wide crackdown on organised crime.

Kolbayev’s killing sparked rumours of a rift between Japarov and Tashiyev. Observers said that Kolbayev’s removal was strengthening Tashiyev’s hand and increasing his chances of becoming the country’s next president.

In the Thursday interview, Japarov claimed that amid the 2020 turmoil Kolbayev had backed not him but former prime minister Sapar Isakov and former president Almazbek Atambayev, who were also making a bid for power.

“On 8 October 2020, Kamchy Kolbayev instructed his guys from his criminal circle to support Sapar Isakov and Atambayev’s group. We knew about that when we, with the Interior Ministry’s help, tapped their phone conversations,” Japarov said.

Japarov also alleged that Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz service Azattyk “fought in all possible ways against my coming to power”.

“Who knows, maybe they were under orders from their external bosses ‘to fight’ me,” he said.

“By saying that Sadyr Japarov was backed by convicts, they were calling all the ordinary people who gathered in the square [to support me] convicts, and broadcast that to the entire world,” Japarov added.

He said that following that, “the entire Kyrgyz people started to hate Azattyk”.

“The entire Kyrgyz people does not trust most of the information coming from Azattyk. They know that they carry out orders from their external bosses and donor.”

Japarov has long been critical of Azattyk. In 2022 Kyrgyz authorities blocked its website for two months and froze its bank account over the organization’s refusal to take down a report on clashes at the border with Tajikistan.