Kyrgyz provisional government will ask Britain to extradite the former president's son on suspicion of financing the recent deadly interethnic clashes in the south of the country, the interim first deputy prime minister said on Tuesday.
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.
"We will request Maxim Bakiyev's extradition," Almazbek Atambayev said. "According to information from our special forces, the Bakiyevs, including Maxim, financed the provocations and riots in the south."
He expressed hope that London would grant the extradition request.
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.
A source close to Maxim Bakiyev confirmed to RIA Novosti on Monday that he had been detained but said he would be released soon.
The interethnic clashes in the country's two southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad, which killed at least 170 people, were "a carefully planned provocation and a second attempt to oust the interim government," Atambayev said, adding that some $10 million were spent to organize the clashes.
He added that by instigating the deadly riots, which killed at least 170 people and displaced thousands of Uzbeks, organizers also tried to disrupt the referendum on the new Kyrgyz constitution scheduled for June 27.
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."
Southern Kyrgyzstan has been wracked by several days of violence between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek. Tens of thousands of ethnic Uzbeks have fled to neighboring Uzbekistan, which has asked for international assistance to cope with the refugees.
According to the interim government, more than 80,000 Uzbeks crossed the border with Uzbekistan in the past four days.
The interim first deputy prime minister expressed the hope that the displaced persons "will return to their homes."
"We will rebuild Osh and Jalal-Abad, and people will return to their homes. We do not divide our people into ethnic groups," Atambayev said.
BISHKEK, June 15 (RIA Novosti)
