Prosecutor's Office: Janysh Bakiyev persecuted for political views

The Prosecutor General’s Office of Belarus will not satisfy the request of Kyrgyzstan to extradite Janysh Bakiyev, the brother of Kyrgyzstan ex-president Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

"Taking into consideration the events that occurred in Kyrgyzstan and also the type of accusations against Janysh Bakiyev, Belarusian side supposes the demand of extradition to be linked to persecution based on political views, thus the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Kyrgyzstan to extradite Janysh Bakiyev was not satisfied," Belarusian Prosecutor General’s Office stated.

Internationally wanted Janysh (Janybek) Bakiyev — the brother of overthrown Kurmanbek Bakiyev — was spotted in downtown Minsk on August 17 with two other men charged with triple assassination.

According to Kyrgyz criminal search department, the persons captured on photos are Janysh Bakiyev, Rustam Saideev and Tahir Rasaliyev.

The persons noticed together with Janysh Bakiyev in Minsk are wanted by international police for assassination of ex-head of Kyrgyz Presidential Administration Medet Sadyrkulov, the head of the International Institute for Strategic Studies Sergei Slepchenko and their driver Kubat Sulaimanov.

Current Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atahbayev calls Janybek (Janysh) Bakiyev "a dreadful man".

According to Mr. Atahbayev, Janysh was in control of shooting demonstrators in April, 2010. Furthermore, he ordered shooters to aim at protesters’ heads and chests.

During the Kyrgyz Riots in 2010 around 90 persons were killed, 1,500 were injured. However they managed to occupy the governmental residence.

Kyrgyz police were disturbed by seeing photos of internationally wanted criminal freely walking in the "friendly" country which is furthermore the party of many treaties and conventions.

Before the incident, Kyrgyzstan had sent several requests demanding to clarify the location of wanted persons but the responses said the location of such persons was unknown.

On August 28, the demonstrators in Bishkek waited for three hours for a representative of Belarusian embassy to Kyrgyzstan to come out and meet with them and then lost their patience and began throwing stones at the building, breaking its windows.

They demanded to extradite Kurmanbek and Janysh Bakiyev (Kurmanbek was sheltered in Belarus and granted Belarusian citizenship by Aliaksandr Lukashenka).

After no results, Kyrgyzstan recalled its ambassador from Minsk.

However, it’s worth mentioning that Belarus’ Prosecutor General’s Office of Belarus expressed its concern by the fact that Poland and the Czech Republic extradite too few criminals over Belarus’ requests.

It was said that both Poland and the Czech Republic have refused to hand over suspects to Belarus on "far-fetched grounds," citing the country's allegedly poor detention conditions and lack of proper legal assistance.

Simultaneously, a representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office claimed that Belarus' decisions on extraditing suspects to other countries was based purely on law, not on political motives.

"If there are legal grounds to hand over a suspect, we do so, if there are no such grounds, we don't do so. We have recently decided to extradite a Ukrainian citizen to the Czech Republic for criminal prosecution," he said.