BISHKEK – A Kyrgyz lawmaker proposed on February 28 stripping former leader Sooronbai Jeenbekov of his status of ex-president over his alleged links to the fugitive former deputy chief of the Customs Service, Raimbek Matraimov.
The lawmaker, Akylbek Tumonbaev, emphasized that several lawmakers have resigned and some ministers have lost their posts over their connections to Matraimov, whose whereabouts are unknown.
Tumonbaev said it was Jeenbekov who brought Matraimov “to the political scene, but his name has not been made public.” Jeenbekov, meanwhile, “is living on the state budget's expenses,” Tumonbaev told a session of parliament.
SEE ALSO: How A Kyrgyz Customs Chief Enabled A Secretive Smuggling EmpireTo strip him of his ex-president status, representatives of his party, the Social Democratic party, in the parliament must first agree on the move and then a special parliamentary commission must be created to implement the decision, according to lawmaker Nurlanbek Azygaliev.
Two of the five former Kyrgyz presidents -- Jeenbekov and Roza Otunbaeva -- have the official status of ex-president, which guarantees them, among other privileges, immunity to legal prosecution.
Other former Kyrgyz leaders -- Askar Akaev, Kurmanbek Bakiev, and Almazbek Atambaev -- were deprived of the ex-president status due to criminal cases launched against them.
Jeenbekov was elected president in 2017. In October 2020, he announced his resignation amid protests against official results of parliamentary elections that demonstrators called rigged. The results of the parliamentary elections were later canceled.
Tumonbaev's proposal comes as police and security officers are targeting relatives and close associates of Matraimov, who in 2020-21 was at the center of a high-profile corruption scandal.
Last month, the State Committee for National Security added Matraimov to its wanted list on charges of abduction and the illegal incarceration of unspecified individuals.
Matraimov, who escaped imprisonment in 2021 by paying 2 billion soms ($22.4 million) to Kyrgyzstan’s state treasury, faced the new charges after Kyrgyz police shot dead criminal kingpin Kamchybek Kolbaev in October.
Last week, the Kyrgyz Central Election Commission annulled the mandates of two lawmakers with close ties to Matraimov -- his brother Iskender Matraimov and associate Nurlan Rajabaliev -- at their own requests.
Raimbek Matraimov faced the new charges after Kyrgyz police shot and killed Kolbaev, who had been added by Washington to a list of major global drug-trafficking suspects in 2011.