BISHKEK -- A well-known Kyrgyz public figure, Edil Baisalov, has said members of the 2010 interim government, including then-interim President Roza Otunbaeva, are being persecuted.
Baisalov, who used to be the chief of staff for Otunbaeva in the interim government, told journalists in Bishkek on September 19 that he believes he may be arrested soon.
Baisalov cited unidentified sources as telling him that President Almazbek Atambaev had ordered law- enforcement agencies to arrest him and force him to testify against Otunbaeva and the leader of the opposition Ata Meken (Fatherland) party, Omurbek Tekebaev.
Last week, the presidential office announced that Atambaev had requested the Prosecutor-General's Office to investigate the alleged involvement of members of the interim government in the escape of ethnic Uzbek businessman Kadyrjan Batyrov from Kyrgyzstan to Europe.
In 2011, Batyrov, who is currently in Sweden, received a life sentence in absentia on charges of inciting interethnic hatred and organizing deadly clashes between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010.
