Kazakh journalist Aidos Sadykov died after the assassination attempt on July 2, 2024. Who decided to assassinate Aidos Sadykov and why and if real customers of the assassination will be found – it is all here in the story of CABAR.asia.
On June 18, 2024, the opposition journalist and author of YouTube and Telegram channel ‘Bese’, Aidos Sadykov, was attempted to be assassinated in Kyiv. According to his spouse Natalia Sadykova, it happened in the yard of their house. The journalist was shot on his head, and the bullet hit the temple and damaged the brain. Natalia was not hurt.
How Aidos was killed
According to the Prosecutor-General’s Office of Ukraine, in the afternoon of June 18, 2024, a criminal ran up to the car, where the journalist and his wife were seated, and shot Sadykov. The names of suspects were revealed on June 21. These were two citizens of Kazakhstan – Altai Zhakanbaev and Meiram Karataev.
According to the Ukrainian law enforcement officers, Zhakanbaev and Karataev arrived in Ukraine from Poland on June 2, and then organised surveillance of Sadykov. The criminals purchased a car, booked a house near Sadykov’s apartment, and studied his daily routine. After they committed the crime, they fled to Moldova.
On June 21, it became known that both suspects were put on the international wanted list. The next day, Zhakanbaev turned himself in to the police in Kazakhstan.
Azattyk journalists found out that Zhakanbaev and Karataev could be linked to security agencies of Kazakhstan. According to the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Kazakhstan, Karataev was dismissed from law enforcement agencies in January 2019 and ‘currently is not a police officer’.
Natalya Sadykova links the assassination of her spouse to his professional activity. She reckons that the shot was a revenge for the critical materials published on YouTube channel ‘Bese’.
“I am sure that the customer of this assassination attempt was President of Kazakhstan Tokayev,” she wrote in her post on June 18.
On July 2, Natalia Sadykova published on her Facebook account a message that her spouse died. The journalist was 56 years old.
“Aidos Sadykov left us today at 3:00, Kyiv time. My beloved husband, father of our three children, great son of the Kazakh people. Aidos dedicated his life to Kazakhstan, suffered martyrdom at the hands of killers. Aidos has struggled for his life for thirteen days in the intensive care, but no miracle happened. His death is on Tokayev’s conscience,” Natalia wrote.
After the message about the journalist’s death, the Prosecutor-General’s Office of Ukraine diverted the investigation from assassination attempt to intentional homicide committed by contract and by previous concert by a group of people.
Will Kazakhstan extradite the suspects?
Kazakh president Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev in his comment about the shooting in Kyiv claimed that Kazakhstan was willing to assist in the investigation. Later, speaker of Senate Maulen Ashimbaev said that Kazakhstan would not extradite Zhakanbaev, a suspect of assassination, to Ukraine.
“According to the laws of our country, our republic gives priority to the rights of our citizens. So, our country, according to the laws, does not extradite the citizens of Kazakhstan in such situations. This is a general principle, not related to this situation: Kazakhstan does not extradite its citizens to other states,” said Ashimbaev to journalists behind the scenes in the senate on June 27.
Lawyer Dzhokhar Utebekov in his comments to CABAR.asia confirmed that the constitution of Kazakhstan prohibits extradition of its citizens to other states under any pretexts, even in case of criminal prosecution.
“Section 1 of article 11 reads: ‘A citizen of the Republic of Kazakhstan may not be extradited to a foreign state, unless otherwise is specified in international treaties of the republic,” Utebekov cited the constitution and added that he was unaware of any cases when the international treaty allowed the extradition of its citizen to another state.
“The treaty on extradition between the Republic of Kazakhstan and Ukraine formally says that the parties can consider an option of extraditing its citizen, but the rules sound weird and we again get stuck on the constitution,” Utebekov said.
The lawyer cited an example: a citizen of Russia killed someone in the territory of Kazakhstan and then fled to his home country. Russia does not extradite him, and the law enforcement bodies of Kazakhstan submit all case materials to Russian law enforcement bodies and ask to prosecute the perpetrator. This is called the continuation of the criminal prosecution.
“Most likely, the Ukrainians will submit all case materials and ask Kazakhstan to prosecute the suspects. As Sadykov was a citizen of Kazakhstan, our authorities have a right to investigate the assassination as part of their own criminal case despite Ukraine’s solution,” Utebekov said.
Will they find the customer?
According to journalist and media expert Adil Dzhalilov, customers of the assassination would hardly be found. According to the expert, ‘persons with personal antipathy to journalists’ could be represented as customers.
“The journalism of Kazakhstan has a background, past history, including such cases as attacks and threats. The only difference is that we have not seen killers and shots in the head since the time of Rakhat Aliev (now deceased senior son-in-law of Kazakh ex-president Nursultan Nazarbayev – Editor’s note),” Dzhalilov said.
Journalist Lukpan Akhmedyarov, who survived the armed attack in 2012, has the same opinion. He does not expect that those guilty – both perpetrators and customers – will ever go on trial.
“The crime is blatantly political, was committed by contract, can hardly be investigated, and maybe will not be solved. It is still unclear who had the motive,” the journalist said.
Adil Dzhalilov paid attention to how ‘blatantly, rudely and far-reaching’ the assassination of Aidos Sadykov looked given that it was committed in another country, by means of serious resources and ex-security officials.
“Any operation of security services in the territory of another country must be authorised by the country and its security services. It is difficult to imagine that such a severe operation could be authorised by Ukraine given the fact that the Sadykovs have lived there for 10 years,” the media expert shared his opinion.
According to him, the story is full of strange things. For example, the entry of killers to Ukraine and departure.
“I assume that someone ‘from above’ could assist. The fact of voluntary appearance of Zhakanbaev is quite weird. Customers presumed (and feared – Editor’s note) the ‘leak’ of the video or documents from the Ukrainian part, or it was a message in the style of ‘what would you do to us’,” Dzhalilov said.
Lukpan Akhmedyarov is sure that if Ukrainian investigators cannot question Altai Zhakanbaev, the investigation will not be transparent.
Persecutions of Kazakh journalists
Sadykov is not the only victim among the journalists of Kazakhstan. Lukpan Akhmedyarov recalls the contract killing of opposition journalist Askhat Sharipzhanov in 2004, which was attempted to be staged as a road accident.
In 2007, Oralgaisha Omarshanova, reporter of newspaper “Zakon i pravosudie” [“Law and Justice”] went missing. The journalist covered criminal stories and carried out investigations. The abduction case remained unsolved for many years. Only 14 years later, in 2022, the leader of the organised crime group, Serik Dzhamanaev, confessed to the homicide and showed where he buried her.
In 2009, a well-known Kyrgyzstan-based journalist, Gennadi Pavlyuk, was killed in Kazakhstan. On December 16, he was thrown out of the window of the sixth floor of a residential building in Almaty. On December 22, he died in the hospital without regaining consciousness. Aldayar Ismankulov, ex-officer of GKNB of Kyrgyzstan (State Committee for National Security), was found guilty of killing the opposition journalist.
It is to be recalled that the assassination of Sadykov took place amid the ongoing persecution of and pressure on journalists.
In October 2022, anonymous people delivered a parcel with a pig’s head inside and the torn photo of editor-in-chief Gulnara Bazhkenova to the editorial office of Orda.kz, and later she was delivered a gravestone with a photo, her name and the date ‘2023’ from the funeral parlour.
On January 13, 2023, the front door of the editorial office of the YouTube channel Elmedia was crushed. On January 14, the car of journalist Dinara Yegeubaeva, who covered the consequences of the January events, was set on fire. On January 18, the website Ulysmedia was hacked, and the personal data of editor-in-chief Samal Ibraeva and her family were ‘leaked’ on the internet. On January 19, 2023, unknown persons sealed the door of the apartment of journalist Vadim Boreiko with polyurethane foam and probably were going to set it on fire.
At the end of 2023, massive DDoS attacks began targeting various media outlets located on different servers. For example, the business outlet Kursiv.Media reported the abnormal amount of requests from bots, over 1.3 billion.
In 2024, the journalists still face troubles. The phrase R.I.P. was written four thousand times in comments on YouTube channel ‘Obozhayu’ [translated from Russian as: I adore]. These threats were addressed to the founder of the channel, Askhat Niyazov. Later on, authorities tried to hold him liable for a reposted message from a Telegram channel about budgetary expenditures, ProTenge.
Dzhamilya Maricheva, founder of ProTenge, wrote in support of the journalists of Radio Azattyq, who were not given permission to work in Kazakhstan. However, Maricheva was fined for the post.
“All journalists must be at one with each other, be aware that no one can be safe when such thing happen [assassination of Sadykov]. Most of my colleagues can hardly understand it and most probably take this tragic event in the abstract, even with aloofness,” said Adil Dzhalilov bitterly.
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