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BISHKEK (TCA) — Former Kyrgyz presidential candidate Omurbek Babanov, who fled the country amid a criminal probe, returned to Kyrgyzstan from his self-imposed exile in Moscow on August 9.
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BISHKEK (TCA) — A meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council was held in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan on August 9.
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BISHKEK (TCA) — Authorities in Kyrgyzstan have charged former President Almazbek Atambayev with corruption, his lawyer Sergey Slesarev told 24.kg news agency.
The Interior Ministry has charged Atambayev over the illegal early release from prison in 2013 of one of the country’s most notorious crime bosses, Aziz Batukaev.
Atambayev will be placed in the pre-trial detention center of the State Committee for National Security until August 26, Slesarev said.
Batukaev was released after being diagnosed with leukemia.
His diagnosis was later found to have been falsified.
Batukaev, an ethnic Chechen, was sentenced in 2006 to nearly 17 years in prison for his involvement in several serious crimes, including the murders of a Kyrgyz lawmaker and an Interior Ministry official.
After his release, Batukaev immediately left for Russia’s North Caucasus region of Chechnya.
Kyrgyz special police forces arrested Atambayev on August 8 after they stormed his residential compound in Koi-Tash village near Bishkek defended by hundreds of Atambayev’s supporters.
Farid Niyazov, former head of the president’s administration under Atambayev and his close associate, has been detained over taking six special forces servicemen hostage during the first, failed special forces operation to detain Atambayev late on August 7, Kunduz Joldubayeva, deputy chairwoman of Atambayev’s Social Democratic Party told 24.kg on August 9.
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BISHKEK (TCA) — A Central Asian regional seminar on demarcation and delimitation practices concluded in Bishkek. The eighth of its kind, it built on the success of the previous events organized by the OSCE’s Transnational Threats Department/Border Security and Management Unit since 2011.
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DUSHANBE (TCA) — Armed forces of Tajikistan and China on August 8 started joint military exercises in Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region which borders Afghanistan, Tajikistan’s Avesta news agency reported.
Tajikistan’s Defense Ministry told Avesta it is the first large-scale joint Tajik-Chinese counterterrorism exercise.
Tajikistan is represented in the drills by ground, air and anti-aircraft defense forces.
The Tajik Defense Ministry said the exercises will practice coordinated actions on the border and fighting terrorism.
It is not the first Tajik-Chinese military exercises in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region — similar exercises were held in October 2016 with the participation of about 10 thousand Tajik and Chinese troops. The Chinese side was then represented by a company of the People’s Liberation Army of China. The drill involved artillery, armored vehicles, and military aircraft.
In that exercise, Tajik and Chinese military practiced elimination of terrorists infiltrating from Afghanistan to Tajikistan and on to China.
In recent years, China has increased its military presence in Tajikistan’s remote Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in a move to protect its northwestern Xinjiang region from potential spillover of Islamic extremists from Afghanistan.
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BISHKEK (TCA) — Kyrgyz special police forces have arrested former President Almazbek Atambayev after they stormed his residential compound in Koi-Tash village near Bishkek defended by hundreds of Atambayev’s supporters, 24.kg news agency reported.
