BISHKEK -- Kyrgyzstan's National Security Service (UKK) has arrested an alleged supporter of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiev who it says was involved in starting ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan in June, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports.
The UKK announced on August 10 that the unnamed man was detained overnight on August 7-8 at the Ak-Jol checkpoint on the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border. The suspect was reportedly heading to Kazakhstan en route for Moscow when he was arrested.
The UKK said the man in question was born in 1981 and was a resident of the Uzgen district of the Osh region. No further details about his identity were made public.
UKK officials say that in April the suspect received an AK-47 assault rifle from Sanjar Bakiev -- a nephew of ex-President Bakiev who has also been detained -- and went to Jalal-Abad where he served as a guard for the ousted president.
The UKK said he had confessed to helping instigate the violent clashes between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Osh and Jalal-Abad from June 10-15 that left at least 356 people dead and caused hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.
Former President Bakiev and some of his relatives are wanted by the Kyrgyz authorities for alleged corruption, embezzlement, and giving orders to open fire on antigovernment demonstrators in Bishkek on April 7.
A total of 86 people were killed and hundreds wounded during those clashes which led to Bakiev's ouster.