ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- A court in Kazakhstan's second-largest city, Almaty, has handed suspended prison terms to five individuals after finding them guilty of being involved in a series of attacks on independent journalists.
The Almaty inter-district specialized court pronounced a 4 1/2-year suspended prison term to Oleksiy Tokarev on November 22 after finding him guilty of obstructing journalists' activities, violation of privacy, attracting minors to criminal activities, hooliganism, and vandalizing private property.
Four others, all of whom were younger than 18 when the attacks occurred, were given 16-month suspended sentences each. RFE/RL does not mention their names due to their ages.
The Kazakh Interior Ministry said earlier in March that "a foreign national identified as O. Tokarev" had been detained in Almaty, confessed to coordinating the attacks, and "agreed to assist" in the investigation by naming four of his accomplices.
It remains unclear who ordered the attacks.
In February, three attacks on independent journalists took place in Almaty.
A masked man physically assaulted investigative journalist Daniyar Moldabekov on February 22 while shouting, "Don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong!"
Two days earlier, another Almaty-based journalist and vlogger, Vadim Boreiko, said two cars belonging to his cameraman Roman Yegorov were burned in an arson attack. The incident happened four weeks after unknown individuals covered the door of Boreiko’s apartment with a spray foam. Boreiko, who runs a popular Giperborei YouTube channel, said the attacks were linked to his journalistic activities.
Also in February, the chief editor of the Ulysmedia.kz news website in Almaty, Samal Ibraeva, received a box sent by unknown people that contained a hunk of meat and pictures of her children, a parcel she called a fresh attempt "to intimidate" her and her staff.
In January, unknown attackers broke the window of a car belonging to well-known journalist Dinara Egeubaeva before setting the vehicle on fire. Egeubaeva also linked the attack to her professional activities.
International human rights watchdogs and the embassies of several Western nations have urged Kazakh authorities to investigate the attacks.
Kazakhstan ranked 122nd out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index.