Kyrgyz Journalist Dies In Kazakh Hospital After Attack

Gennady Pavlyuk

Kyrgyz journalist Gennady Pavlyuk has died in an Almaty hospital nearly a week after police say he was thrown out of a high-rise building in Kazakhstan with his hands and feet bound.

Pavlyuk never regained consciousness following the December 16 attack during a visit to Almaty.

Pavlyuk's wife Olga told RFE/RL's Kazakh Service that an autopsy would be performed today in Almaty and that after that she would take the body to Bishkek for burial.

Pavlyuk wrote for several newspapers, including "Argumenty i fakty" and "Komsomolskaya Pravda v Kirgizii."

Pavlyuk's supporters have described the incident as an attack on press freedom.

A Kazakh police spokesman said the death is being investigated as a murder, Reuters reports.

Pavlyuk is the third ethnic Russian journalist from Kyrgyzstan to have been attacked or seriously injured in the past two weeks.