Questions Surround Kyrgyz Prison Break

Timur Toktonaliev

Central Asia Editor

Monday, 2 November, 2015

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A dramatic prison break by Islamist radicals in Kyrgyzstan, after which most of the escaped convicts ended up dead or wounded, has led human rights defenders to call for a thorough investigation.

On October 12, nine men escaped from a detention centre in Nizhny Nooruz, about an hour’s drive from Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek. Three prison guards were killed during the escape, and another died of his injuries later.

Within ten days, all the prisoners had either been captured or killed.

Daniyar Kadyraliev was shot dead in a suburb of Bishkek on October 16, and Azamat Musuraliev was tracked down and killed four days later while hiding out in a sheep-pen in the Chui region, outside the capital. The last of the fugitives, Altynbek Itibaev, was killed late on October 22 when security forces raided an apartment in Bishkek.

On the day of the escape, five of the prisoners – Taalaybek Jumanov, Muratbek Jumaliev, Muzaffar Urinov, Bakyt Kenjegulov and Bolot Kurbanakhunov – were captured on a major highway not far away from the prison.

A sixth, Edil Abdrahmanov, was shot but captured alive in a raid in the Chui region on October 22. Police released a video of Abdrahmanov, badly injured from a gunshot wound to the leg, being questioned by security officers. A home-made Islamic State flag could be seen in the film as well as a gun which the authorities later said was a replica.

Three of the six detained men, Jumanov, Jumaliev and Kenjegulov, died in custody on October 20-21. Officials said Jumaliev died of a brain haemorrhage and cardiac arrest in a prison hospital while the other two suffered heart attacks the next day.

Out of the nine who broke out, that leaves just three back in detention – Abdrahmanov, Urinov and Kurbanakhunov.

Relatives and human rights defenders have raised concerns about why three men would die in quick succession after being re-arrested, but the penal authorities have yet to announce whether an investigation will be carried out.

“The fact that these recaptured men died in detention means they were beaten. They didn’t have health problems at the time of their arrest,” human rights defender Toktayim Umetalieva told IWPR.

Umetalieva suspects the security services may have used excessive force in shooting dead the three who were killed on the run.

“It isn’t clear why they had to shoot the escapees. Why couldn’t they wound them and capture them alive?” she asked. “If they had been left alive, there would have been more information on who was behind this thing [escape] and how it happened. Abdrahmanov is alive now, but wounded, so let’s hope he stays alive. Let’s shed some light on this story.”

LINKS TO TERROR GROUPS

Kyrgyzstan’s government is worried about the threat posed by Islamic extremism in the country. The authorities estimate that 200 citizens have travelled to fight with Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq, although the real figure may be higher. (See also Kyrgyzstan: Return From Syria.)

Eight of the nine were serving life sentences for terrorism offence and murder, while Musuraliev and Itibaev (see below) were awaiting trial for terror-related crimes.

Police say the nine were all members of Jaish ul-Mahdi, a banned Islamic radical group. Kyrgyz authorities blame the group for a series of attacks in Bishkek –on a synagogue in September 2010 and on a sports stadium in November the same year. After a shoot-out with security forces in the capital in January 2011, a crackdown led to dozens of its members including its leaders being killed or captured.

One of the convicts, Itibaev, is said to have been involved in a July 2015 firefight between Islamists and police in Bishkek in which six gunmen were killed. (Islamic State Link to Kyrgyzstan Firefight.)

Itibaev had been jailed for life in 2013 for the 2009 murder of lawmaker Sanjar Kydyraliev. Unusually, he was transferred to an open prison the following year and was subsequently freed in a prison amnesty, before being arrested again after the July 2015 gunbattle.

After the prison break, he sought refuge in an apartment reportedly belonging to Kairat Saliev, a militant killed while fighting in Syria.

Itibaev was killed after a four-hour firefight with police on October 22. During the siege, a 79-year old woman and 56-year old man who lived in neighbouring apartments were mistakenly killed by police gunfire.

Police say they are looking into how Itibaev obtained firearms after his escape and have arrested two alleged accomplices.

QUESTIONS ABOUT SECURITY AND SYSTEMS

The circumstances surrounding the escape itself have raised a few questions.

The detention facility where the prisoners were held was a high-security one specifically designed for individuals convicted of serious crimes, including those who are serving life sentences.

According to Salamat Abdiev, an official with Kyrgyzstan’s penal service, the prisoners persuaded a guard to open a door, killed him, took his keys and opened more doors. All nine of them made their way from the detention block to an administrative office, broke a window and made their escape.

Abdiev told a press conference that the CCTV cameras inside the prison had been out of action for a fortnight prior to the October 12 escape, and around the time the men were making their way out, there was a power outage lasting 30 minutes, and the back-up generator did not come on.

Tolekan Ismailova, head of the human rights group Bir Dyuino-Kyrgyzstan, says the security lapse was much more severe than that. She told IWPR that an independent investigation of the detention facility in question had revealed that the cameras had been out of order for four months.

“Staff reported the camera failure to the authorities, and technicians came over to tell them how to fix it,” she said. “The government knew about it but didn’t raise the alarm. As far as prison safety and security is concerned in this facility, it was not up to standard.”

Umetalieva does not believe the prisoners could have got out on their own.

“Some very powerful, influential people must have been involved in order to organise an escape like this,” she told IWPR.

“The state of the prisons hasn’t changed for decades, and there haven’t been any reforms,” she continued, saying the prisons ran on “written and unwritten rules”, warders were inadequately trained and paid, and there was no independent external scrutiny. “The problems are being ignored.”

A spokesman for the prison service, Alexander Nixdorf, told IWPR that it had long been an aim to separate murderers and others serving life sentences from the rest of the prison population.

“We realised that a long ago, but funding was the stumbling-block. There was no money in the budget for new prisons. But now we’re being promised that funds will be earmarked,” he said.

Nixdorf says that because high-risk prisoners are held in more secure facilities where they cannot work or go on drug and alcohol rehab programmes, they have a lot of time on their hands, and this makes them especially vulnerable to Islamic radicals who use their time in prison to recruit others to their cause

Speaking on October 20, Deputy Prime Minister Abdrahman Mamataliev said that all prisoners with life sentences would be moved to individual cells in a new purpose-built prison near Bishkek due for completion later this year. As for Islamic radicals, Mamataliev said such convicts would be held separately from common criminals when the government could afford to do so.  

Timur Toktonaliev is IWPR editor in Kyrgyzstan. IWPR-trained journalists also contributed to this report.