Watchdog

ASTANA -- A Kazakh journalist says she has fled Kazakhstan with her husband and two young children to avoid prosecution.

Natalya Sadyqova told RFE/RL on March 27 that she and her family were currently in Ukraine.

Sadyqova said investigators in her native city of Aqtobe questioned her last month regarding an article published in the opposition "Respublika" online news portal about corruption among local officials.

Investigators told Sadyqova they suspected she was the author and informed her that former lawmaker Marat Itegulov had filed a libel suit against the author, who was listed as Bakhyt Ilyasova.

Sadyqova insists she had nothing to do with the article.

She said she left Kazakhstan on March 9 after police sources informed her she might be arrested.

A court in Aqtobe issued a warrant for her arrest on March 17.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- A Kazakh judge who freed a Russian businessman who had been convicted of ordering a murder is on trial herself.

Kuplash Otemisova, 56, was arrested in September and charged with issuing a "wrong ruling" after she decided in August that a 12-year sentence imposed against Aleksandr Sutyaginsky in March 2013 should be replaced by a suspended sentence of six years since the killing never took place.

Sutyaginsky, a businessman from the Siberian city of Omsk, was an active presence in Kazakhstan and often seen at ceremonies with top Kazakh and Russian officials.

Sutyaginsky fled to Russia after his release.

Otemisova, whose trial started March 26, faces up to seven years in jail if found guilty.

Otemisova's lawyer, Vladimir Popov, told RFE/RL that the charges against Otemisova violate her rights as a judge.