AUG. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Uzbekistan said they had arrested nine more people in connection to financial crimes linked to Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov, RFE/RL reported. Until March 2014 Ms Karimova was one of the most powerful people in Uzbekistan. She has been under house since then.
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(News report from Issue No. 244, published on Aug. 21 2015)
AUG. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev appointed Akhmetzhan Yessimov, formerly the mayor of Almaty, to head his set piece EXPO-2017 in Astana. Mr Yessimov is a trusted ally of Mr Nazarbayev and is tasked with bringing EXPO-2017 back on track after a major corruption scandal. Baurzhan Baibek, an official at Mr Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan, will be the new Almaty mayor.
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(News report from Issue No. 243, published on Aug. 14 2015)
JULY 14/15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Two top managers resigned from Astana EXPO-2017, the company charged with delivering President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s extravaganza. Both ex-managing director Saltanat Rakhimbekova and ex-deputy chairman Vera Kobalia left their positions voluntarily. An embezzlement case has dented progress on EXPO-2017.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz police detained MP Hajimurat Korkmazov for extorting a bribe of $100,000 from the brother of Nariman Tuleyev, a jailed MP, the AKIpress agency reported. The case highlights corruption among officials in Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov sacked deputy PM Annamukhamed Gochyev “for serious drawbacks in his work” and several other government officials on allegations of corruption. Mr Berdymukhamedov rotates ministers to reduce their power.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Uzbekistan arrested 500 police last year on various charges including corruption, torture and abuse of power, media reported quoting a source in the interior ministry. Rights groups have accused Uzbekistan of being a police state.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – US prosecutors have opened a case against an unnamed relative of Uzbek president Islam Karimov to regain around $300m paid out in apparent bribes by two Russian telecoms companies, media reported. The unnamed relative is widely thought to be Gulnara Karimova, Mr Karimov’s eldest daughter.
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(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)
JUNE 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Kazakhstan arrested Sulambek Barkinkhoyev, the managing-director of President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s flagship EXPO-2017 event, on suspicion of corruption. The arrest came a few days after police also arrested Mr Barkinkhoyev’s boss on corruption allegations.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US Congress said that its ethics committee was investigating whether SOCAR, the Azerbaijani state-owned energy company, paid for a 2013 trip to Baku for 10 congressmen and 32 staff members.
Congress’ rules ban foreign governments paying for overseas trips. All the Congressmen implicated in the investigation deny any wrong-doing and have said that they were unaware that SOCAR had paid for their trips to a conference in Baku.
The Houston Chronicle reported that the focus of the investigation are hundreds of thousands of dollars paid out by SOCAR to two Texas-based non-profit organisations which then paid for trips to Baku.
Azerbaijan’s lobbying techniques have attracted more and more criticism over the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s security forces opened a money laundering investigation into UzGazOil, a private company that runs a network of petrol stations, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. UzGazOil was owned by Zeromax which was linked to Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Pres. Islam Karimov.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)