In Rare Move, Kazakh School Named After Slain Opposition Leader

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- In an unprecedented move, local lawmakers in the southern Almaty region of Kazakhstan have agreed to name a local school after slain opposition leader Altynbek Sarsenbaiuly, despite open questions over his assassination and demands by relatives, rights groups, and opposition politicians for a thorough investigation of his death in 2006.

Almaty regional council spokesman Daulet Zharasbaev said on September 7 that the decision to name the school in the late politician's native village of Saryzhaz was approved by regional lawmakers after being coordinated with the government and naming commission.

Sarsenbaiuly's brother, civil rights activist Rysbek Sarsenbaiuly, hailed the move, saying that for more than 16 years any public mention of his late brother's name had been taboo.

Kazakh officials changed the versions of what happened to Altynbek Sarsenbaiuly and his two associates several times, providing the public with inconsistent and contradictory information for years.

Erzhan Otembaev, the former administrative head of the Kazakh parliament, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2006 after he confessed to organizing the killing of the three men.

However, in 2013, Otembaev's sentence was annulled after the authorities announced that the case had been sent for review based on newly obtained evidence they said indicated that Rakhat Aliev, then-President Nursultan Nazarbaev's former son-in-law, had ordered the killing.

Aliev, who was deputy chief of the National Security Committee when the slayings took place and became an outspoken opponent to Nazarbaev in 2007, was in self-imposed exile in Europe at the time.

Aliev was later arrested by Austrian officials at the request of authorities in Kazakhstan, who accused him of involvement in the kidnapping and killing of two local bankers.

In February 2015, Aliev was found hanged in a Vienna jail.

The decision to give Sarsenbaiuly's name to a school was made amid dramatic changes following unprecedented, violent anti-government protests in January that led to the removal of Nazarbaev and his clan from the Central Asian country's political scene.

Also on September 7, lawmakers approved a move to cancel First President's Day, which is marked annually on December 1.

Last week, parliament proposed returning the previous name of the capital, Astana, which had been renamed in Nazarbaev's honor in March 2019 as Nur-Sultan.

In June, Nazarbaev's name was removed from the constitution via a referendum, which also deprived him of the title of "elbasy," or leader of the nation.