ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- The son of a Kazakh opposition leader whose death in 2005 was officially declared a suicide has demanded a new probe into his father's death.
Qairat Nurqadilov said on March 3 that he had filed a request with the prosecutor-general's office to reinvestigate his father's death.
"I hope that the new prosecutor-general, Berik Asylov, will read my request in the near future and the new probe will be launched soon," Nurqadilov said.
Asylov told RFE/RL that he had not yet been informed about Nurqadilov's request.
Qairat Nurqadilov’s father, Zamanbek Nurqadilov, was once mayor of the oil-rich country's largest city, Almaty, and chairman of the emergency situations agency before he turned into a fierce critic of then-President Nursultan Nazarbaev and his government in 2004.
Qairat Nurkadilov (center) son of the late opposition leader Zamanbek Nurkadilov. (file photo)
He was found dead with two bullets in his chest and one in his head at his home in Almaty in November 2005. The death was officially declared a suicide.
Qairat Nurqadilov’s demand for a new probe comes after deadly unrest in January that resulted in the removal of Kazakhstan’s former president and his clan from the political scene.
His father’s death preceded a series of suspicious deaths of opposition politicians and journalists. It remains unclear whether Qairat Nurqadilov’s demand for a new probe into his father’s death will touch off reexaminations of any of those cases.
Among them are the deaths of another opposition leader, former government minister and Kazakh Ambassador to Russia Altynbek Sarsenbaiuly, and his two associates, who were found shot dead near Almaty in February 2006, three months after Nurqadilov's death.
Former Kazakh Ambassador to Russia Altynbek Sarsenbaiuly, pictured attending Nurqadilov's funeral in November 2005, was found shot dead along with two associates near Almaty three months later.
Both politicians were interviewed in July 2004 by prominent independent journalist Askhat Sharipzhanov, who was found the same day as the interview bloodied and unconscious with a fractured skull. He died several days later in a hospital.
Police said he had been hit by a car, but friends and colleagues said his injuries suggested he had been struck in the head before being hit by a vehicle.
Sarsenbaiuly's killing was officially declared to have been motivated by personal enmity. A former chief of staff of the Kazakh parliament, Erzhan Otembaev, was convicted of ordering the slaying and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
However, in 2013, Otembaev's sentence was annulled after Kazakh authorities announced that the case had been sent for review based on newly obtained evidence they said indicated that Rakhat Aliev, Nazarbaev's former son-in-law, had ordered the killing.
The late Kazakh journalist Askhat Sharipzhanov.
Aliev, who was deputy chief of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee when the slaying 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, which accused him of involvement into kidnapping and murder of two Kazakh bankers.
In February 2015, Aliev was found hanged in a Vienna jail.
Austrian officials ruled Aliev's death a suicide, but many in Kazakhstan believe he was murdered while in Austrian custody.