The imprisoned former chief of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee (KNB), Karim Masimov, has been handed new charges of money laundering and taking a bribe.
The KNB's press service said on November 14 that Masimov was currently in a pretrial detention center in Astana, the capital, awaiting trial on the new charges. No details on the charges were provided.
Masimov, once a close ally of the former President Nursultan Nazarbaev, is already headed for prison after he was sentenced to 18 years in April over his role in deadly events that followed unprecedented anti-government protests in the former Soviet republic in January 2022.
His deputies, Anuar Sadyqulov and Daulet Erghozhin, were sentenced to 16 years and 15 years in prison in that case. A court in Astana found all three men guilty of high treason, attempting to seize power by force, and abuse of office and power.
Another former deputy of Masimov, Marat Osipov, was sentenced to three years in prison on a charge of abuse of office at the same trial.
The 58-year-old Masimov was arrested days after the protests turned into mass unrest, leaving at least 238 people -- including 19 law enforcement officers -- dead.
Masimov's first deputy, Samat Abish, a nephew of Nazarbaev, was dismissed but did not face any charges.
The protests began in the southwestern town of Zhanaozen in January 2022 over a sudden fuel-price hike. But the demonstrations quickly grew into broader unrest against corruption, political stagnation, and widespread injustice.
Much of the protesters' anger appeared directed at Nazarbaev, who ruled Kazakhstan from 1989 until March 2019, when he handed power to Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev. However, Nazarbaev was widely believed to remain in control behind the scenes.
The protests were violently dispersed by police and military personnel, including troops of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization that Toqaev invited into the country claiming that "20,000 extremists who were trained in terrorist camps abroad" attacked Almaty.
The authorities have provided no evidence to back Toqaev's claim about foreign terrorists.