Almaty Police Detain Young Men Suspected of Handing Out Weapons to Participants of January Protests

Alma-Ata police detained three young people aged 19-20 who are suspected of distributing weapons to compatriots during the January riots. This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is quoted by RIA Novosti.

All the suspects detained on the territory of one of the city’s markets have been taken into custody and are being checked for involvement in other crimes. The police are also looking into the motives behind the detainees’ actions.

The suspects themselves admit that they attacked the weapons store, especially since this process was recorded by a video camera, but they assure that they were forced to do this by unknown people who, in addition, took away half of the weapons. Other detainees report that the weapons were distributed by men armed with knives and machine guns, who forced the suspects to remove the weapons from the store and deliver them to their destination.

Shortly after the New Year, mass protests broke out in Kazakhstan, which escalated into street fights and clashes with the “siloviki”. The catalyst for the unrest, which lasted six days and led to the death of more than 200 people, including civilians, was a sharp increase in the price of liquefied gas. At present, the first suspects in the robbery of weapons stores have been detained in Alma-Ata, and the police are urging the townspeople to hand over illegally stored weapons.