ASTANA -- The chairman of Kazakhstan's parliament, Maulen Ashimbaev, said his country will not extradite to Ukraine Altai Zhaqanbaev, one of two Kazakh citizens suspected of the attempted murder of Kazakh opposition activist and journalist Aidos Sadyqov in Kyiv.
"According to our country's laws, our republic gives a priority to our citizens' rights.... Kazakhstan does not extradite its citizens to other countries," Ashimbaev said on June 27, adding that Kazakh investigators are ready to cooperate with Ukrainian officials to investigate the attack on Sadyqov.
Sadyqov, an outspoken critic of Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev and his government, was shot on June 18 while he was in his car in the Ukrainian capital and is currently in intensive care.
His wife, Natalya Sadyqova, who is also a journalist, was in the vehicle during the attack but was unharmed.
On June 26, Kazakh Deputy Interior Minister Marat Qozhaev told RFE/RL that if Ukraine requests the extradition of the two suspects from Kazakhstan, "everything will proceed in accordance with the law."
Earlier on June 25, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General's Office said it had started the extradition process for two Kazakh nationals suspected of the attempted assassination of Sadyqov.
On June 19, just one day after the attack, Ukrainian police said investigators established that Sadyqov had been shot by two Kazakh suspects -- Altai Zhaqanbaev, born in 1988, and Meiram Qarataev, born in 1991 -- who were added to an international wanted list.
On June 22, Kazakhstan's Prosecutor-General's Office said the Central Asian nation's police had detained Zhaqanbaev and that they were trying to establish the whereabouts of Qarataev.
Natalya Sadyqova has said that Qarataev worked as a police officer in the northern Qostanai region. The Kazakh Interior Ministry, however, claimed that Qarataev had been sacked from the police force in 2019.
The Sadyqovs, along with their children, moved to Kyiv in 2014 after Kazakh authorities launched a case against Sadyqova, who worked as a journalist for the independent Respublika newspaper at the time. She was accused of slander.
Natalya Sadyqova said the attempted assassination against her husband appeared to be a "professional" operation.
On June 19, Sadyqova told RFE/RL that, hours before the attack, she and her husband had issued a new video titled Toqaev Is Putin's Puppet on their YouTube channel.
The video criticizes Toqaev's "pro-Russian politics" and looks at the activities of Russian oligarchs and agents of influence in Kazakhstan, some of whom obtained Kazakh citizenship after Russia launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
She added that Toqaev would have stood to gain from her husband's killing but did not present any evidence that connected the president in any way to the shooting.
Toqaev's spokesman, Berik Uali, said on June 21 that the Kazakh president "had ordered law enforcement entities to find the two suspects' whereabouts and undertake corresponding measures."
"Kazakhstan's side is ready to cooperate with Ukraine's law enforcement structures, including via Interpol," Uali said.
Sadyqov used to lead a branch of the opposition Azat Social Democratic Party in his native Aqtobe region in Kazakhstan's northwest until 2010.
He later headed a group that was a major force for establishing a union to defend the rights of Kazakh workers at the Chinese-owned CNPC-Aktobemunaygaz oil company.