International Herald Tribune
Suspicions follow crash of Kyrgyzstan politician
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan: The former head of the presidential administration in Kyrgyzstan, who was a leader of the opposition, was killed in a suspicious car crash early Friday morning that many observers are calling a murder.
"We are absolutely in agreement that it is an assassination," said Bakyt Beshimov, an opposition member of Parliament, said of the death of Medet Sadyrkulov. "He became a victim of this repressive regime."
The grisly crash was the latest in a series of incidents that the government's opponents say amounts to a drastic crackdown on opposition politicians, journalists and civil society in the country.
Sadyrkulov died in a car crash at about 5 a.m. Friday while returning to Bishkek from neighboring Kazakhstan, according to local news media and politicians close to him. The chief of the Internal Affairs Ministry said that pending DNA tests he could not confirm the identity of three bodies, believed to be those of Sadyrkulov and his guards, found in an incinerated sport utility vehicle that had been hit by a sedan.
An opposition politician said that in recent weeks Sadyrkulov had been raising money in Kazakhstan to help overthrow President Kurmanbek Bakiyev of Kyrgyzstan. "There are many groups in Kazakhstan that would be interested," said the politician, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.
Although Sadyrkulov oversaw widely criticized parliamentary elections in December 2007 that solidified Bakiyev's rule over this Central Asian state, several opposition politicians said that he had recently approached them with offers to make amends.
"He was not only frustrated with this government, but also sad that he helped Bakiyev to strengthen his power," said Omurbek Tekebayev, a former speaker of Parliament and head of an opposition party. "He said that it was now his obligation to help correct the problems that he had created."
Tekebayev and other politicians accused the president's family of engineering Sadyrkulov's death. He said that Sadyrkulov had told him that he wanted to join the opposition for ideological reasons, but also "to secure himself."
Before stepping down in January, Sadyrkulov was in charge of the president's cabinet, and was his primary negotiator. He was instrumental in forming the president's party, Ak-Zhol, in 2007, and organized the party list that determined who would be seated in Parliament. In January, he left his position with little public explanation. Some insiders said that he was forced out, although he said he turned down an offer to be foreign minister.
Sadyrkulov's death comes amid what opposition politicians — and other former insiders — describe as a growing atmosphere of harassment, intimidation and threats. This week a leading opposition figure, Alikbek Jekshenkulov, was arrested on what his supporters call a false charge of murdering a Turkish businessman. That followed the vicious and so far unexplained beating and stabbing of an opposition journalist, and came amid a debate about proposed legislation that would ban NGOs from participating in politics.
"I think I might be next, but I am not scared," said the former first vice prime minister, Elmira Ibrakhimova, who resigned shortly after Sadyrkulov.
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