ASTANA -- The imprisoned former chief of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee (KNB), Karim Masimov, has been added to the Central Asian nation's list of sponsors of terrorism.
Kazakhstan's Agency of Financial Monitoring said on July 17 that Masimov’s two former deputies, Anuar Sadyqulov and Daulet Erghozhin, were also added to the list.
Masimov, once a close ally of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in April over his role in the deadly events that followed unprecedented anti-government protests in the former Soviet republic in January 2022.
Sadyqulov and Erghozhin were sentenced to 16 years and 15 years in prison, respectively, at the time. A court in Astana found all three men guilty of high treason, attempting to seize power by force, and abuse of office and power.
Another former deputy of Masimov, Marat Osipov, was sentenced to three years in prison on a charge of abuse of office at the same trial.
The court also deprived all of the defendants of their military ranks of general and all state awards. The trial was held behind closed doors as it contained classified materials, the court said.
The 58-year-old Masimov was arrested along with Erghozhin and Sadyqulov days after the protests turned into mass unrest, leaving at least 238 people -- including 19 law enforcement officers -- dead.
Osipov was arrested in February 2022.
Masimov's first deputy, Samat Abish, a nephew of Nazarbaev, was sacked from his post but did not face any charges.
The protests began in the southwestern town of Zhanaozen in January 2022 over a sudden fuel price hike. But the demonstrations quickly grew into broader unrest against corruption, political stagnation, and widespread injustice.
Much of the protesters' anger appeared directed at Nazarbaev, who ruled Kazakhstan from 1989 until March 2019, when he handed power to Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev. However, Nazarbaev was widely believed to remain in control behind the scenes.
The protests were violently dispersed by police and military personnel, including troops of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization that Toqaev invited into the country after claiming that "20,000 extremists who were trained in terrorist camps abroad" had attacked Almaty.
The authorities have provided no evidence proving Toqaev’s claim about foreign terrorists.