ASTANA -- The Kazakh Interior Ministry says police have apprehended a person who allegedly coordinated a recent series of attacks on independent journalists.
Ministry official Albina Makhambetova said on February 28 that "a foreign national identified as O. Tokarev" had been detained in the Central Asian country's largest city, Almaty, after police and security officers found materials in his home suggesting that he had coordinated the attacks on several noted journalists.
"The main goal of the attacks carried out by the criminal group was to discredit Kazakhstan's president and his ongoing democratic reforms," Makhambetova said. "The suspect was placed in a pretrial detention center. No more details can be revealed as the investigation is under way."
She added that other individuals arrested earlier on suspicion of carrying out the attacks were charged with the obstruction of journalistic activities, violating privacy, issuing threats, damaging private property, and hooliganism.
The police said last week they had detained 18 people suspected of attacking six journalists and bloggers, as well as one associated individual, in a spate of incidents since September 2022.
It remains unclear who ordered the attacks.
Makhambetova's statement comes five days after the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists urged theKazakh authorities to "thoroughly investigate" the series of attacks on independent journalists.
SEE ALSO: Media Watchdog Urges Kazakhstan To Investigate Attacks On JournalistsLast week, a masked man physically attacked investigative journalist Daniyar Moldabekov while shouting "don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong!"
On February 20, another Almaty-based journalist and vlogger, Vadim Boreiko, said his cameraman Roman Yegorov's two cars were torched in an arson attack.
Also in February, the chief editor of the Ulysmedia.kz news website in Almaty, Samal Ibraeva, received a box that contained a hunk of meat and pictures of her children, a parcel she called a fresh attempt "to intimidate" her and her staff.
International human rights watchdogs and several Western embassies have also urged the Kazakh authorities to investigate the attacks.