Kyrgyz interim government is set to appeal again for the extradition of the former president's son on suspicion of financing the recent deadly interethnic clashes in the south of the country, the interim deputy prime minister said on Thursday.
Maxim Bakiyev, second son of ousted Kyrgyz leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was detained on Monday by the U.K. Border Agency after landing at Farnborough airport in southern England in a rented private jet. He has been charged with money laundering and was on the Interpol wanted list.
"It should be sorted out whether he [Maxim Bakiyev] was detained or received an [political] asylum," Azimbek Beknazarov, responsible for Kyrgyz law enforcement, said.
Beknazarov said Kyrgyzstan would request Maxim Bakiyev's extradition as "we are sure that he and his uncle Janysh Bakiyev (ex-president's brother) are involved in numerous crimes and terrorism".
The Kyrgyz Prosecutor's General's Office suspects Maxim Bakiyev of embezzling millions of dollars of a loan from Russia. According to prosecutors he had placed $35 million of a $300 million loan from Russia into his private bank accounts while in office.
Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who took refuge in Belarus after being ousted as a result of mass riots in April, told a news conference in Minsk on Monday that the accusations against him and his family were "groundless."
At least 191 people died and thousands were injured in clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek groups in southern Kyrgyzstan. The unrest broke out in the city of Osh on June 11 and then spread to the neighboring Jalalabad region.
BISHKEK, June 17 (RIA Novosti)
