Watchdog

Leaders of the Kazakh opposition Azat party urged authorities to reopen the investigation into the 2006 murder of an opposition leader, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.

The demand comes after the release of the book "Godfather-In-Law" by Rakhat Aliev, the fugitive former son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbaev.

The book reveals details of the controversial system of power built by Nazarbaev as leader of the country in the past 20 years.

Aliev, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Austria since 2007, states that opposition leader Altynbek Sarsenbaev and his two associates were killed by National Security Committee officers on a special order from Nazarbaev.

Azat party leader Bulat Abilov said in Almaty on June 2 that since the book reveals new details about the murder, the case should be reviewed.

Meanwhile, Sarsenbaev's brother, Rysbek, told journalists that he suspects Aliev of personal involvement in Sarsenbaev's killing.

He said that the popular weekly newspaper "Karavan" -- which was then owned and controlled by Aliev -- was the first to cover the developments around the murder as if it had inside information about the killing.

The director of an independent periodical in Russia's Samara Oblast faces charges of infringing on intellectual property rights, according to RFE/RL's Russian Service.

"Samarskaya gazeta" head Sergei Kurt-Adzhiev was officially accused by Russian prosecutors of using unlicensed PC programs for employees.

He was ordered not to leave the city of Samara until the investigation is complete.

Kurt-Adzhiev, a former Samara bureau chief for the independent "Novaya gazeta" newspaper, rejects the charges and says they are politically motivated.

His lawyer, Nikolai Gavrilov, told RFE/RL that he would file an official protest with the Prosecutor-General's Office.