Arrest in Makat: police wounds suspect + Relatives' story

By Murat Sultangaliyev and Azamat Maitanov

May 20, the village of Makat, officers of law enforcement agencies used service weapons when apprehending a local citizen suspected of committing a serious crime.

An operations group was carrying on arrest of some Kairat, born in 1984, in the village of Makat, the center of Makat district of Atyrau Oblast.

The suspect showed resistance to police and tried to escape by car, but was stopped by officers who opened fire wounding him.

A high ranking official from National Security Department - KNB - in Atyrau said, currently, special prosecutors are probing whether using weapons by police against suspect in Makat was substantiated.

Chief doctor of Makat district hospital confirmed that the detained man has been shot in his right thigh.

Soon after hospitalization in Makat, he was tranferred to the hospital of Atyrau, under police escort.

Our sources in law enforcement agencies informed that since March a special inter-departmental commission made up of Finpol, KNB and police officers has been operating in Atyrau Oblast under leadership of special prosecutors seconded from Astana.

The group was created in order to investigate into corruption and criminal crimes committed in the oblast during the governance of Bergei Ryskaliyev and his team.

A special attention was paid to the District of Makat known as the hotbed of unlimitly powerful criminals and legal nihilism in the province.

Natives of Makat were among the active members of Ryskaliyev's gang. Makat is the place where murders were regular and people would get lost without trace, the source said.

It was also reported that the commission had left for Makat last week to unfreeze and investigate old and unlawfully stopped criminal proceedings into grave offences.

Relatives' version

The mother and relatives of the suspect, Kairat Utebayev, came to the Ak Zhaik office to explain the details of his arrest.

They said at the moment when Kairat stopped his car before his house, a black vehicle suddenly appeared and armed men in civilian clothes dropped off.

"Explaining nothing and showing no service ID they tried to pull him out of his car. Kairat got scared and pushed the gas pedal. One of the men managed to jump in his car. Having driven 500 meters they stopped. He was shot in his leg and received head injury. Obviously, my son thought he was being kidnapped, a usual thing in Makat. His older brother disappeared the same way a month ago, later we learnt he was being held in detention center.  If they suspect my son in something, why don't they arrest him by law, instead of staging such a capture as if he is an armed terrorist? Why police used weapons without a warning?" says Aisulu Kuanysheva, the mother of Kairat Utebayev.

At the moment, the wounded is being kept in a special room of the provincial hospital under police guard.

Relatives are not allowed to see him and even not told a thing about his condition. Now they are looking for a lawyer. 

Once upon a time Kairat was convicted for involuntary manslaughter. But his relatives claim he has never been a gang member, but a law abiding citizen.

"Law enforcement officers are now 'shaking' the entire village. By now several other people have been detained. Police themselves well know who actually runs organized crime in Makat. They are people with good connections, they live in Atyrau, in expensive houses. Police has to report that they caught and put bandits behind bars, so those like Kairat and other residents of Makat, who have previous convictions are being made scapegoats," stated Utebayev's relatives.

We learnt that all these arrests are officially being carried out within the criminal proceeding launched by Article 125 of Kazakhstan's penal code - kidnapping.

Kidnapping a person, killing him and hiding the body is not an unusual thing in Makat.

Mostly, such cases remain unsolved - there are suspects, but no corpse, respectively, there is not a component element of a crime.

Police shrug shoulders and murderers are released without punishment. 

By Azamat Maitanov