Kyrgyzstan sentences ex-president, brother in absentia

Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), Feb 12 (AFP) A Kyrgyz military court today sentenced in absentia former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev to 24 years in prison and his brother Janysh to life over a murder of a powerful top official in 2009. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was toppled in a bloody 2010 uprising fuelled by his family's rampant corruption during a half decade in power, was convicted of abuse of power by the Bishkek military garrison court. His brother Janysh, the former head of the state bodyguard service under Bakiyev, was meanwhile convicted of multiple murder. Both men fled to Belarus after the 2010 revolution and Minsk has so far refused requests from Bishkek's new rulers to extradite the pair. The closed-door trial against them specifically related to the 2009 murder of the former head of the presidential administration Medet Sadyrkulov, a powerful political player known as the "grey cardinal". Sadyrkulov was killed in March 2009 in what the pro-Bakiyev authorities blamed on a car accident but which the opposition immediately suspected was murder carried out by forces loyal to the president. The fact that the bodies of Sadyrkulov and his two dead companions were found in the Lexus jeep with severe burns had immediately raised suspicions about whether an accident was the cause of death. The investigation found that Sadyrkulov had been personally tortured by Janysh Bakiyev which resulted in the breaking of several bones. He was then found burned to death in the jeep on the highway leading from the Kazakh city of Almaty. The former president has also been charged with mass murder over the fatal shooting by police of dozens of people in the 2010 uprising. (AFP) NKB HKR 02121837 NNNN