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Yesterday, July 18, 2024, marked exactly one month since the assassination attempt on Kazakhstani opposition journalist and political activist Aidos Sadykov. His serious wound from a gunshot to the temple and subsequent death attracted the attention of the press, the public and human rights organizations in many countries around the world, including Ukraine and Russia.
As for Kazakhstan, the reaction here was twofold.
On the one hand, the second President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev responded to what happened almost immediately . Moreover, according to the press secretary Berik Uali, he instructed law enforcement agencies to establish the location of the suspects and take appropriate measures.
On the other hand, de facto Kazakhstani security forces are doing nothing, even after one of the two direct participants in the assassination attempt in Kiev, Altai Zhakanbayev, voluntarily surrendered to them in Astana on June 21 (we wrote about him here ).
In our opinion, this duality is caused by the fact that Akorda realizes that this tragedy could backfire on Kazakhstan, especially if it is established that the assassination attempt on Aidos Sadykov was organized, if not by Kazakhstani security forces, then by individual high-ranking security officials.
After all, then Tokayev and his entourage will definitely not be able to fight off the accusations of organizing the murder of the opposition journalist, which means that the reputation of the new leader of the nation, who is building a just state, can be put to rest. With all the ensuing domestic and foreign policy consequences.
It seems that it was precisely these concerns (or even fears) that forced Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to personally respond to the assassination attempt. Although at first it was assumed, according to our insiders in power, that the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan would make a corresponding statement. However, literally within a few hours this decision was revised, and official Kazakhstan commented on the serious injury of Aidos Sadykov at the highest political level.
At the same time, Akorda cannot allow an active investigation of the crime. After all, the same Altai Zhakanbayev can say something that, if made public, will cause political damage to the image of both Kazakhstan and Akorda.
It is for this reason that the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan has not yet responded to the request of its Ukrainian colleagues, who asked to extradite (not extradite!) Zhakanbaev to Ukraine for a certain period of time - in order to carry out the necessary investigative actions to investigate the murder.
However, such slowness cannot last long - say, more than a couple of months. Akorda and, perhaps, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev himself will have to make a difficult decision - who to blame for the assassination attempt on Aidos Sadykov and his subsequent death.
True, Akorda has the option of making the killers themselves, Meiram Karatayev and Altay Zhakanbayev, “scapegoats”, since the first disappeared in an unknown direction, and the second is under the complete control of Kazakhstani security forces and therefore will speak (or remain silent) about what he is ordered to.
There is also another version of events. The same one that was used by the first president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev and his organized crime group of high-ranking officials of the Kazakh security forces during the murder of politician Altynbek Sarsenbayev.
We are talking about shifting the blame onto some person who allegedly had a strong dislike for the Sadykovs and their project “BASE”.
And what’s surprising is that such a person already exists - a certain Kazakh businessman with big connections in the echelons of power named Gadzhi Gadzhiev. We have already written about him more than once (for example, here , here and here ).
Let us recall that it was Gadzhi Gadzhiev who last year sent two people to Kiev who first followed Aidos Sadykov and then tried to persuade him not to write anything bad.
For those who don’t remember this story, we will briefly recall it and provide several links that you can follow to understand what we are talking about:
It was later revealed that there were two "messengers". "Respublika" has photos taken from the shopping center’s cameras.
That is, this activity of Gadzhi Gadzhiev and his representatives, described above, is enough to assume that the person who, according to our insiders, is involved in the organized smuggling of products banned for export to Russia and Belarus across the Chinese-Kazakh and Kazakh-Russian borders, could well have organized an assassination attempt on Aidos Sadykov. So to speak, to take revenge on him for his intractability.
There are several arguments against this version. One of them is that, in our opinion, there is too long a gap between the last known actions of Gadzhiev’s people in Kiev and the shooting of Aidos Sadykov on June 18, 2024. But the most compelling argument for us in favor of Gadzhiev’s innocence was the latest information about him from our insiders (at our request, they are closely monitoring all his movements).
So, according to Respublika’s sources, Mr. Gadzhiev is now in an extremely difficult situation for himself. But not because his enemies are defeating him, but because he has already earned so much money that his main tasks are now: a) to hide this money and b) to prevent him from being physically destroyed.
That is why he is now concerned not so much with increasing his income, but with finding a way to escape the blow.
Moreover, he is allegedly really considering the option of leaving the smuggling business and handing it over to those who will receive sanction from above. And this means that the murder of Aidos Sadykov, which could lead to him, is the last thing Gadzhiev needs now.
Meanwhile, according to our insiders, he understands the difficult and dangerous situation he has found himself in, and fears repeating the fate of Yerzhan Utembayev (he was made the “customer” of the murder of politician Altynbek Sarsenbayev) or Rakhat Aliyev (Nazarbayev’s former son-in-law was killed in prison in Vienna).
Well, if it becomes known what exactly and how much Gadzhi Gadzhiev earned (in particular, as they say, on the transportation of goods from China to Russia through the territory of Kazakhstan), then his fate will be sealed - hundreds of millions of US dollars are a great temptation for many in power.