No Kazakh citizens among those apprehended in the USA: KZ’s FM spokesman

Foreign Ministry. © Daniyal OkassovKazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry is checking the information on a Kazakhstan-based company allegedly being blacklisted by the US Trade Department, Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Altai Abibullayev told a briefing October 8.

“Respective work is being done at the diplomatic level with the US State Department. As soon as we have learnt all the details, we will announce them”, he said.

The spokesman also emphasized that there are no Kazakh citizens among 11 defendants named in a federal indictment filed in Brooklyn charging them with conspiring to purposely evade strict export controls for advanced microelectronics. His remarks follow media reports that the same court charges a Kazakhstan-born Alexander Fishenko with operating inside the United States as an unregistered agent of the Russian government.

“There are no Kazakh citizens among those apprehended in the USA. The US side hasn’t confirmed that any of them hold a Kazakh citizenship. And no notifications on possible involvement of any Kazakh citizens in the case have been received (…) No defendants or their relatives have turned to Kazakhstan’s representation offices based in the USA. No Kazakh citizens bearing such names have been registered with Kazakhstan’s representation offices in the USA”, Mr. Abibullayev said.

He stressed that Mr. Fishenko is no longer a citizen of Kazakhstan. “Kazakhstan-born Fishenko had lost his Kazakhstan’s citizenship upon obtaining Russia’s citizenship before he obtained his US citizenship”, he said.

Tengrinews.kz journalists tried to spot the premises of Apex Kazakhstan Company allegedly involved in the espionage case. However, Zharokov Street 126 accommodates only an apartment block with no adjacent offices. The company hasn’t been spotted in local Internet-based directories, either.

According to Huffingtonpost, the indictment alleges that since October 2008, the 46-year-old Fishenko and his co-defendants "engaged in a surreptitious and systematic conspiracy" to obtain the highly regulated technology from U.S. makers and export them to Russia.

U.S. authorities say the microelectronics could have a wide range of military uses, including radar and surveillance systems, weapons guidance systems and detonation triggers. They also say the charges come amid a modernization campaign by Russian military officials hungry for the restricted, American-made components.

tengrinews.kz