Russian intelligence arrests, extradites fmr Kyrgyz interior minister

Kongantiyev

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
If there were any doubts that Russia is aggressively courting the new interim government in Kyrgyzstan, they were dispelled earlier today with the announcement that Russian authorities arrested the Central Asian republic’s former interior minister. Kyrgyzstan’s National Security State Service (NSSS) announced that Moldomusa Kongantiyev was arrested on Sunday in Moscow, by agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), and will be extradited to Bishkek, where he will face charges of using state repression against demonstrators. Kongantiyev had escaped to Russia in mid-April, after he was abducted and viciously beaten by Kyrgyz opposition demonstrators, who released him after his family paid a significant amount of money as ransom. IntelNews hears that Kongantiyev suspected that Moscow planned to extradite him to Kyrgyzstan, and that some of the supporters of the deposed regime in Russia offered to hide him. But their attempt to smuggle him out of a hospital in Moscow, where he was receiving medical care, was thwarted by the FSB, after a tip from  NSSS. Kongantiyev is the most senior cabinet member of the toppled regime of Kurmanbek Bakiyev to have been arrested so far. Bakiyev himself has escaped with his family to close Russian ally Belarus, where he has been offered political asylum. Speaking to reporters earlier this month, the former Kyrgyz president denied he had plans to return to Kyrgyzstan, or to form a government-in-exile. Russia was among the first countries to recognize the interim government of Roza Otunbayeva, and has dramatically increased its monetary aid to the impoverished Central Asian nation. Both Russia and the United States, which maintains a strategically crucial air base in Kyrgyzstan, have been courting the interim government, which says it plans to hold free elections on October 10.