Viktor Khrapunov talked about the murders of Zake and Alteke
After the notorious massacre on the Arkankergen border post, tragedies began happening so often that pretty much nobody believes they are occurring by chance. The former mayor of Almaty Viktor Khrapunov doesn’t believe in that, either. Judging from his interview for the K-plus TV channel, he knows who is behind the so called “incidents” with the border patrol Zamanbek Nurkadilov’s “suicide”, and Altynbek Sarsenbayev’s murder.
The hypothesis about a plane accident is questionable
– Viktor Viacheslavovich, the reason for our conversation is the chain of strange suicides and incidents as result of which the Kazakhstan’s border patrol forces were left leaderless. I would like to discuss with you the issue of murders, suicides, and other incidents and their role in the political life in Kazakhstan.
– You observed correctly; the situation with the border patrol has put me on the alert. These murders, the incidents with the plane, with the border post – this all happened for a reason.
– You’re the former minister of extreme situations. About the incident with the plane – can such a disaster happen the way it was described?
– When I was the minister of extreme situations and developed the program for a reform in the Ministry of Extreme Situations of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Ministry had only one airplane АН-30, i.e. there was no way to transport the specialists to the sites of the incidents happening in Kazakhstan. When assessing the state of affairs, we were looking at what planes we could buy in order to transport the special divisions to the locations where extreme situations have occurred. At that time, all the specialists were of the opinion that AH-72 is the most reliable plane…
That is, the plane in which the leadership of the Republic of Kazakhstan’s border patrol forces perished is one of the most reliable planes in the airspace of the CIS. There was no plane more reliable than this one. Therefore, I very much doubt the hypothesis that the plane found itself in some kind of an extreme situation as a result of which the top brass, the whole leadership of the border patrol forces, perished.
I’m of the opinion that this was a planned measure taken most likely in order to get rid of all the traces remaining from the case of the border patrol forces…
Nurkadilov was “cut down” by the President’s people
– The director of the Border Patrol Academy Major-General Talgat Esetov was found dead in his office, with a gunshot wound on his body. Here, of course, a certain analogy with Nurkadilov is inevitable; I think you know much more about his suicide than the readers do. Could you possibly tell us the details about the case?
– I can talk about this case in great detail. In the distant 2004 (soon, on March 11, it will be 10 years since it happened), Nurkadilov made a sensational statement in which he made colossal accusations against the government head Nursultan Nazarbayev, asked him to repent before it’s too late, and went into opposition.
At the same time, I had torn ligaments in my leg and was forced to go outside of Kazakhstan for the surgery because our doctors refused to operate on my knee. All of a sudden, the Head of the Administrative Department of the President calls me and starts harping on me in a rude, forceful manner, “You went into opposition, you’re supporting Nurkadilov, what are you thinking?” I was surprised: who said that? To which he replied that the President told him and quoted the President’s words, “What is this? This is all due to the people from Almaty, all of them are from Almaty…”. With this, the incident was over.
Nurkadilov went into opposition and began making sensational statements, constantly talking about what is happening in Kazakhstan and who is to blame for all of it.
– What was the reason for the Nurkadilov situation to escalate?
– When I came back to Kazakhstan after my surgery, I was still walking with crutches, on sick leave, but the President summoned me and all the regional governors to his office. It was clear that the organizational issue of my position as the mayor of Almaty will be dealt with. The meeting took place, very serious reports were presented – mine, the one of the President’s Administration; the President stated that Viktor remains in his position and let us go in peace, so to speak, to carry on our government service. This happened in April.
Later on, I received information from the President’s Administration that Nursultan Nazarbayev will celebrate the May 1 holiday in Almaty. I was asked to prepare an itinerary of festive events for the occasion. The President said that he will come to the square and will take part in the festivities on the square.
Just at that time, Nurkadilov makes a very sharp statement, saying, “Mr. President, I’m prepared to engage in a political debate with you on May 1, on the square, and we need to discuss publicly and openly what is wrong in Kazakhstan nowadays and what has to be done to change things”. Nazarbayev was worried and didn’t even want to come to the square but came after all.
We got up on the stand, he made a speech, and, suddenly, shouts came from one of the square’s corners, the security people surrounded the area. Nurkadilov is shouting, “Here I am, I came for the debate, I’m ready!” They weren’t letting him through, placed turnstiles, barred access to the stand. Nurkadilov kept shouting but it was useless, he couldn’t get through.
Nazarbayev was constantly looking in that direction; a few minutes later, one of the generals ran over and reported, “Mr. President, don’t worry, we cut him off.” Literally a few minutes after that, another one ran over and said, “Mr. President, my people cut him off.”
– What did “cut down” mean?
– They said they cut him down, he could neither talk nor take any action. They applied physical pressure, and he fell down.
This is what actually happened, though: the special division soldiers applied physical pressure to the security guy, a young man, 6’7” tall. They just cut him down, he fell on the pavement. As Nurkadilov himself said, “I saw death in these people’s eyes.” He got into the car and drove away.
I don’t believe this was a suicide!
– What happened next?
The subsequent resistance was very strong. Nurkadilov didn’t join any opposition groups, continued acting on his own, accused the President of all sins and problems happening in Kazakhstan.
Naturally, the President didn’t like that, and a certain situation arose around Nurkadilov. Bulat Utemuratov called me and said specifically, “The boss gave instructions for you to talk things over with Nurkadilov and make him calm down.” Says, the boss can give him a position, and an office commensurate with his services and rank. I said, “Since there are instructions, I’ll definitely meet with him”.
I arranged a meeting, went to his house, we sat, and talked. The conversation was long and hard. Nurkadilov said, though, that he won’t attack just like that but won’t stop his oppositional actions, either.
Some time later, Bulat Utemuratov calls me again and says, “That’s all, you don’t need to deal with Nurkadilov anymore. The boss says it’s time for this to end.”
– “End” in what way?
– I’m quoting Utemuratov word for word: “This needs to end. And we will end it.” I thought, of course, that they had found some kind of approach to Nurkadilov and would resolve all the issues on their own.
– You never met Nurkadilov again?
– At the end of 2004, I was transferred to a position as a governor in Eastern Kazakhstan. And suddenly, out of the blue, I received information from the Ministry of Internal Affairs that Zamanbek Nurkadilov had been found dead in his home on Luganskogo St., with three gunshot wounds, most likely, suicide. I was doubtful: how can you shoot at yourself three times?
Some time later, I get a call from Dariga Nazarbayeva and, surprisingly, says, “Have you heard that Nurkadilov was found dead in his home? What do you think, who could’ve done that?” I say, “It’s hard for me to say, I’m not aware of everything that’s going on. I don’t have information. The information I have is very meager. All I know is that a man shot himself twice in the heart and then in the temples. His body was found on the floor, covered with a sheet, and between his legs, there was the gun with which Nurkadilov shot himself.” She so confidently states that all cameras were on – 16 video cameras, so, she says, even a fly can’t fly through and a mouse can’t slip in. And she says, “What do you think, could Makpal (Nurkadilov’s wife – Ed.) have shot him?” Supposedly, they didn’t get along well.
I replied that this woman is a renowned actress of Kazakhstan and is only capable of holding a dombra in her hands (a type of a musical instrument – Trans.) and has no clue which end of the gun to hold. Dariga told me, “You’re so naïve, when a woman wants something, she’ll get everything she wants. If I were you, I wouldn’t discount the possibility that Makpal killed Nurkadilov.” With this, the conversation ended.
The official hypothesis was announced as suicide. The international criminologists said that this is the only case in the history of world criminology where a man shot himself three times.
– So what about the 16 video cameras which were mentioned?
– The cameras were blocked at that moment, all the information was collected. According to the official hypothesis, nobody went in or out of Nurkadilov’s house. He was found by his wife. Supposedly, here is what happened. She invited him to sit down to dinner. He initially declined, went out on the balcony. Then, she started suspecting something – there was silence, she went there, shouting was heard. That is, the cameras recorded how she went in, how she was gone for a while, how the shout was heard. This is what enabled the official hypothesis and Dariga Nazarbayeva to speculate that she is the one who shot Nurkadilov.
– So, at that moment, all the advocates of the hypothesis that Nurkadilov was shot were turning into advocates of a crazy conspiracy theory because the material evidence pointed at suicide?
– Yes, but as I said before, when a person suffers such a gunshot wound, he falls into a state of shock which doesn’t let him raise the gun a second time and shoot himself. The human body is built in such a way that when a person suffers a pain induced shock, the body stiffens, and the person is unable to do anything by himself. That’s why I’m fully convinced that the official suicide hypothesis isn’t objective; the investigation hasn’t been thorough. Or, maybe, it was thorough, but the public was told that it was suicide in order not to worry them.
Who wanted to kill Sarsenbayev?
– Zamanbek Nurkadilov’s supposed suicide happened on November 12, 2005. On February 13, 2006, that is, a few months afterward, Altynbek Sarsenbayev was murdered. Do you think these tragedies were connected?
– I’ll tell you even more that that… You mentioned February 13, 2006 when three relatively young men were found shot, with their hands tied, near the city of Almaty. And here is a situation: one evening in Almaty, we met with Dariga Nazarbayeva, two representatives from Russia had come to meet with her as well as a number of Kazakh specialists.
We’re sitting at the table, having dinner. Suddenly, Dariga says that there is this Sarsenbayev person who is simply out of his mind: an opposition member, says subversive things, constantly blackmails her, supposedly, so that she would conduct an illegal maneuver to privatize the television.
I remembered that, at one of the parliamentary sessions, Altynbek did say, “I can actually make it public knowledge how you privatized Kazakhstan’s television, how it ended up in your hands for next to nothing.” And Dariga suddenly says to her guests, “There is no one who would kill Sarsenbayev!” At that moment, I became speechless.
– Were there many people when she said that?
– There were eight of us: Dariga herself, two people from Russia, the two of us, the district mayor, and couple of other people. And she says, “Only one person in Kazakhstan, my younger sister Aliya’s husband, slapped this Sarsenbayev’s face.” Can you imagine such provocation?! See, only this one boy dared hit the man who had been a Minister, a Deputy Prime Minister, an ambassador of Kazakhstan. He hit him and defended Dariga Nazarbayeva’s honor. And sometime later, someone shot Sarsenbayev…
…It’s important to take the specific period into account as well. The “color revolutions” took place in Georgia and Ukraine. The government of Kazakhstan was enveloped in the palpable fear that the regime may be overthrown along the same principle and in the same way, and maybe this was what pushed Nazarbayev to conduct the operation for destroying the opposition.
Sooner or later, secrets are revealed
– Viktor Viacheslavovich, while Zamanbek Nurkadilov openly declared that he is opposing the President, Altynbek Sarsenbayev was more covert, but it was known widely enough that he opposes the President on many issues. But in the present situation, we don’t see actual opposition in the country except for the political parties and organizations which have been actually destroyed by the regime. I mean – among the country’s government. Despite that, we observe such strange incidents as the mass perishing of the border patrol soldiers…
– In this, I’m seeing the further implementation of Nursultan Nazarbayev’s “Superkhan” program. I’ve read the program; it was created by someone named Mirchev whom Dariga Nazarbayeva had found. She brought him in, introduced him to Nazarbayev, and that group of specialists developed a program for the future promotion of Nazarbayev’s image. The program specifically describes how and when it’s necessary to conduct terrorist acts aimed at scaring the population.
Do you remember the terrorist acts in the National Security Committee building in Aktyubinsk, in Astana – Kazakhstan’s capital, in Southern Kazakhstan? The next tragedy occurred at the border post when one soldier shot all the other soldiers even though there were some experts among them who could have knocked that boy down with just one blow of a bare hand. I see a malicious intent there as well. Some of the border patrol officers on that plane probably had some information. Measures had to be taken in order to conceal it.
People are being brainwashed into believing that one young boy is behind the massacre at the border post, and that the plane fell by accident, and that the head of the Border Patrol Academy shot himself in his office.
… The dictator Nazarbayev is overcome with fear, and this is an extremely strong fear of losing his power, an extremely strong fear of finding himself among those who would be judged by the people…
– So, you think he was really in fear of the border patrol forces, their commanding staff, some other law enforcement agencies? Or is this just provocation?
– I think this is all part of the implementation of the “Superkhan” program. Everything’s happening according to what’s written there. At this stage they did one thing, there – another, a third, a fourth, a fifth, the people are scared, they want protection. And who do they want protection from? Only from President Nazarbayev. Nazarbayev’s authority is once again in full bloom, and everyone else is guilty…
– What do you think, would it be possible to find the real perpetrators of those crimes committed several years ago?
– I think all secrets get revealed. The history of humanity’s development proves that the majority of crimes at some point are solved, those who order the crimes and those who commit them are found – regardless of how much they have been protected by the authorities who gave them commands to commit this or that crime.
This, so to speak, echelon program for protecting those who order crimes has always existed. The first to be removed are the people who received the order, then, the next link, and so on and so forth, all the way to the last witness who knew about the case.
I would like to note that manuscripts don’t burn, as they say. When necessary, documents suddenly surface to confirm that things happened the way they did.
A clear example is the murder of the journalist Georgiy Gongadze. How the bureaucrats kept hiding the trails! But when it became necessary to find proof that certain officials are criminals, the materials were collected quickly…
I don’t think anyone has invented anything new in our country, either. That’s why I would like to warn President Nazarbayev and those who walk next to him, who develop and deliver to the President this or that explanation for the reprisals against this or that person, that sooner or later, everything will come to light. The people will find out the truth.
An interview by Aleksey Tikhonov
