Kazakhstan: Ex-Uranium Boss Charged with Embezzlement

The former head of Kazakhstan's national uranium company is in custody on charges of embezzlement. Mukhtar Dzhakishev was arrested on May 25 just days after he was dismissed from his post at Kazatomprom.

Colleagues however say the charges against him are "not in the national interests." In an interview with Kazakh newspaper Vremya, Galym Nazarov, the head of Kazatomprom's Treasury Department, alleges Dzhakishev is the victim of a business vendetta.

"I believe it is related to one company that won a tender [. . .] probably, someone very influential stands behind this company, since they demanded in ultimatum form that Mukhtar Dzhakishev give them all construction [contracts for a] network of substations and transmission lines [. . .] obviously, he refused [. . .] but those people got offended and this year, the political state of affairs is in their favor, and in our country this means much more than the truth," Nazarov asserted.

Nazarov also suggested Dzhakishev was targeted because of his "close" friendship with disgraced banker Mukhtar Ablyazov. Ablyazov, the former chairman of BTA bank, was charged with fraud in March and is on the run.