The January riots involved organized criminal groups, members of destructive religious movements and previously convicted persons, the Deputy Head of the Special Prosecutors Service of the Kazakhstan Prosecutor General’s Office stated at a briefing. According to Nurlybek Sabitov, to date, over 5,000 pre-trial investigations were carried out. It is known that, pogroms and terrorist attacks were committed, government facilities were set on fire, and the property was destroyed in the cities of Almaty and Shymkent, as well as in Aktobe, Atyrau, Almaty, Zhambyl, Kyzylorda and East Kazakhstan regions.
“To date, 286 suspects are being held in custody for all criminal cases. It has been reliably established that they actively participated in riots, arson of public structures, theft of firearms, armed attacks on government facilities and employees of law enforcement agencies. For each of them, there is sufficient evidence of their involvement in crimes. In total, 474 criminal cases were sent to the court regarding the January events,” said Nurlybek Sabitov, Deputy Head, Special Prosecutors’ Service, Kazakh Prosecutor General’s Office.
According to the representative of the Prosecutor General's Office, the main scope of work is carried out on mass riots and terrorist attacks. Over 1,000 people have been identified as suspects in these criminal cases, and each of them is subject to comprehensive investigative actions, such as interrogation, confrontation, collection of evidence, clarification of testimony and other.
