Watchdog

BISHKEK -- The former head of Kyrgyzstan's Customs Service, Adamkul Junusov has been detained in Baku at the request of authorities in Bishkek.

Kyrgyz Financial Police spokeswoman Anastasia Piskur told RFE/RL that Junusov was detained in Baku's Heydar Aliyev International Airport on December 5.

Piskur said Kyrgyz investigators were traveling to Azerbaijan to bring Junusov back to Bishkek, where he is wanted on charges of abusing his office.

The Financial Police in Bishkek previously charged that Junusov's "corrupt" activities as head of the Customs Service from 2013 to 2016 had cost Kyrgyzstan's state treasury 166 million soms, or about $2.1 million.

Junusov's whereabouts had not been known since the summer.

He was added to Kyrgyzstan's wanted list in August after he was indicted in absentia and a court in Bishkek issued a warrant for his arrest.

Junusov is the latest of several former Kyrgyz officials facing corruption charges in Bishkek after working during the 2011-2017 term of former President Almazbek Atambaev.

Atambaev has criticized his successor, President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, since March for sacking or arresting a number of his close allies in what he called a "pseudo-anticorruption" campaign.

Two Atambaev allies who also served as prime minister when he was president, Sapar Isakov and Jantoro Satybaldiev, were arrested in June on corruption charges.

In October, Atambaev's former adviser Ikramjan Ilmiyanov was detained in Russia and brought by Kyrgyz authorities to Bishkek where he was arrested on corruption charges.

Kyrgyz lawmakers and other politicians recently have been calling for an investigation into some decisions made by Atambaev while he was in office.

Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court ruled in early October that the immunity provided to the country's former presidents is unconstitutional.

On November 27, a parliamentary committee outlined a bill that would eliminate immunity for former presidents, potentially clearing a way for Atambaev to be prosecuted.

MOSCOW -- A Russian court has sentenced Lev Ponomaryov, a prominent human rights defender and critic of President Vladimir Putin, to 25 days in jail for organizing a protest against the arrests of activists -- drawing strong criticism from campaigners.

In a December 5 ruling, Moscow's Tver District Court said that Ponomaryov -- the head of the organization For Human Rights -- repeatedly violated regulations for holding public events and gatherings.

Speaking to the AFP news agency by phone as he was being driven to a detention center, the 77-year-old Ponomaryov said the country was "gradually inching toward mass political repressions."

In a statement, Ponomaryov's organization denounced his arrest and sentencing as "absolutely illegal" and suggested he was jailed because he was helping to prepare a new opposition rally set for mid-December.

"Putin's justice in all its glory," opposition politician Ilya Yashin tweeted, while the London-based human rights group Amnesty International said the sentence reflected Russian authorities' "contempt for human rights."

Presidential human rights council head Mikhail Fedotov also criticized the verdict, which he called "inexplicable."

Investigators say Ponomaryov organized a demonstration in Moscow on October 28 to support activists of New Greatness and Network, two groups that Russian authorities accuse of extremism.

Ponomaryov was earlier fined for holding a single-person protest against arrests of New Greatness activists.

On October 28, peaceful demonstrations to support members of the two groups were held in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and several other cities across Russia.

Members of the once-obscure New Greatness were arrested in mid-March and charged with the creation of an extremist group. Four of them are in pretrial detention and six are under house arrest.

The activists have said they turned their online chat criticizing the government into a political movement after the move was proposed by one of their members.

Later, it was revealed that the man who proposed the idea, wrote the movement's charter, and rented premises for the movement's gatherings was a special agent of the Federal Security Service (FSB).

The investigation into Network was launched in October 2017.

Investigators say 11 members of the group from St. Petersburg and Penza, 550 kilometers southeast of Moscow, plotted an armed insurrection and bombing campaign during the March presidential election and the 2018 soccer World Cup in June and July.

Network members Dmitry Pchelintsev said last week that he was starting a hunger strike to protest his arrest.

With reporting by AFP