Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency
November 13

The South Kazakhstan Regional Prosecutor's Office considers that Uzbekistan should pay compensation for the damage inflicted on the family of a Kazakh citizen who was shot dead by an Uzbek border guard.

A resident of the region, Elmurat Bayturganov, 31, was killed in an incident on the Kazakh-Uzbek border on 6 November. He left behind four underage children. "The regional prosecutor's office is now preparing a package of documents for making its claims to the Uzbek side to the effect that compensation be paid for the moral and material damage inflicted on the family of a Kazakh citizen, Elmurat Bayturganov, as a result of his death on the Kazakh-Uzbek border on 6 November," the regional prosecutor's office told Interfax-Kazakhstan today.

An Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency correspondent reported that differencies had emerged in the assessment of the activities of the Kazakh citizen and Uzbek border guards as one week has passed since the incident.

So according to the Uzbek border troops' command staff, their border guards had to resort to the use of firearms in order to defend themselves from residents of a Kazakh village who did not agree to leave an Uzbek pasture and threw sticks and stones at the border guards on duty.

However, immediately following the incident, the Kazakh side disseminated information saying that Uzbek and Kazakh citizens were involved in a contraband deal, including Bayturganov, which the Uzbek police were trying to prevent.

A bilateral commission, which is made up of officers from the Kazakh and Uzbek law-enforcement agencies, is currently working on the case.

As reported earlier, soon after the incident, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry expressed protest to Uzbek capital Tashkent at the use of firearms against civilians. In turn, the Uzbek side admitted that the border guards on duty had used firearms and instituted criminal proceedings.

In keeping with the 1993 Minsk convention and the 1997 Kazakh-Uzbek agreement on "Legal help and legal relations in common civil and family cases", the regional prosecutor's office will demand that the Uzbek authorities prosecute those Uzbek border guards who are guilty of the Kazakh citizen's death.

In connection with this, the prosecutor's office told Interfax-Kazakhstan that it was the fourth case of the unjustified use of firearms by Uzbek border guards against Kazakh citizens.

Specialists at the regional prosecutor's office noted that violations by both Kazakh and Uzbek sides had been registered in the border area only this year.

On 12 February, four unidentified people threw stones at a check point of the Kazakh Tonkeris customs post and hid themselves in Uzbekistan. Substantial damage was inflicted on the building - its windows were broken, the interior of the building and a customs officer's personal car were damaged. The Tashkent Internal Affairs Directorate was informed of this.

Uzbek border guards detained residents of the region's Saryagash District for smuggling attempts at the Gishkoprik customs post on 1 May. The Kazakh citizens did not obey the Uzbek border guards' order and started a fight. Two Uzbek border guards were admitted to a hospital in Tashkent with bodily injuries. Police Col Rustam Ismailov, chief of the Tashkent District Internal Affairs Department, visited the scene of the incident. As a result of the measures taken the instigator of the fight was identified. It was a resident of Saryagash town, who was born in 1977. The materials of the case were handed over the Uzbek Military Prosecutor's Office.

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