The wife of the jailed former interim manager of Kyrgyzstan's Kumtor gold, Tengiz Bolturuk, says she has gone on a hunger strike to protest against a court's rejection of his request to be transferred from a pretrial detention center to house arrest.
Bolturuk's wife, Ilmira Alpysbaeva, said in a Facebook post on March 13 that she was launching the hunger strike because the justice system was treating her husband unfairly.
"I am declaring a hunger strike today, from March 13th, for not giving my husband even the strictest house arrest! Not giving him the opportunity to defend himself!" she wrote.
The Oktyabr district court rejected Bolturuk's request for a transfer on March 10 even though Alpysbaeva said her husband's health condition had dramatically worsened since his arrest in September.
The State Committee for National Security (UKMK) arrested Bolturuk and two of his associates -- Aisha-Gul Janalieva and Ryspek Toktogulov -- accusing the three of financial misdeeds.
They were sacked in late August after the UKMK launched a probe against them, saying that the auditing chamber found financial violations in their activities.
The UKMK said at the time that Bolturuk and his assistants allegedly caused financial damage to the State Treasury assessed at 1 billion soms ($11,440,000).
Bolturuk has rejected the charges.
Kyrgyzstan and the Kyrgyz state-owned gold mining company regained full control of the Kumtor gold mine earlier last year under the terms of a deal with the Canadian company Centerra Gold signed in April 2022.
Bolturuk, who previously represented Kyrgyzstan at Centerra Gold, was interim manager of Kumtor at the time.
Kumtor had been the target of financial and environmental disagreements for years before turning into the subject of a control battle between the Kyrgyz state and Centerra Gold.
The Kyrgyz government has insisted that Centerra's operations endangered human lives and the environment, which the company denied.
In May 2021, the Canadian firm said it had "initiated binding arbitration to enforce its rights under long-standing investment agreements with the government."
Many Kyrgyz lawmakers have expressed concern about an alleged lack of transparency at Kumtor since the Kyrgyz government took control of the gold mine.