Kazakhs See Politician’s Death as a Whodunit

The plot is knottier than an Agatha Christie novel: A prominent politician is gunned down along with his driver and bodyguard. A top civil servant allegedly confesses to ordering the hit in a fury over being branded an alcoholic. But no one seems to believe that motive, and everyone gathered at the dinner table starts pointing fingers.

So far, however, there has been no Miss Marple moment for Kazakhstan. And the questions raised by the killings -- not to mention the quick cracking of the case -- have sent political shockwaves through this oil-rich former Soviet state the size of Western Europe.

First, the official story: According to Kazakh authorities, opposition leader Altynbek Sarsenbayev and the two others were kidnapped by rogue members of an elite national security unit and slain by a former police officer last month, all at the instigation of a man who until his arrest was the administrator of the Kazakh Senate.

Ten suspects have been arrested, and all have allegedly confessed.

But many people view the killings as an unsolved mystery, questioning the seemingly weak motive and suspecting that someone more powerful than Senate administration chief Yerzhan Utembayev must have ordered the hit. For a conspiracy-minded public, that “someone” ranges from President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev to dozens of figures from the political and economic elite.

At Kazakhstan’s invitation, FBI agents have joined the investigation. The U.S. agency’s involvement appears aimed at either finding higher-level culprits, should they exist, or better evidence -- backed by the additional credibility the FBI may bring -- to convince Kazakhs that the chain of responsibility truly goes no higher.

“Utembayev is just a middleman. He’s not the person who instigated this murder,” asserted Alim Salybayev, who has helped organize a 15-second skit reenacting the killings, which he said would be performed repeatedly in public places. “We want to tell people: ‘Look, there was a murder.’ We want to keep saying it every week until they find the murderers.”

Three months after the long-ruling Nazarbayev, 65, was overwhelmingly reelected to another seven-year term, some observers say a power struggle to succeed him in this Central Asian country is already underway, with the slayings one of the opening salvos in the fierce maneuvering for political advantage.

“It is very likely that someone wants some extremely serious reshuffles in our country,” said Sabit Zhusupov, director of the Institute of Social and Economic Information and Forecasting, a think tank in Almaty, the country’s former capital. “I think this was a very well-planned, very well thought-out action, and the middle link has already disappeared and it is unlikely that the highest-ranking people who had a stake in this will be identified.”

A Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give an interview, said he believed that Nazarbayev was not involved in the slaying and that the president truly wanted to get to the bottom of the case.

Although authorities have portrayed the case as essentially solved, the diplomat said that behind the scenes, Kazakh investigators seemed to be trying as hard as they could to nail down what really happened.

“There are two possibilities: They’re firmly convinced this is all there is, and they’re fully willing to investigate more to close off other avenues ... [or else] they suspect there’s more and they want to find out,” he said. “You have to go down the same path no matter which one you believe.”

Another opposition leader, Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, the closest challenger to Nazarbayev in December’s election, said he suspected the slayings could be part of a plot aimed at destabilizing the country and opening a path for the seizure of power by a hidden rival at the president’s side.

“Those around him don’t want to wait seven years. They want to get power as quickly as possible,” Tuyakbai said. “One of the means by which they could come to power would be a severe clash between the opposition and the powers that be, where the authorities would repress opposition leaders to the full extent possible. As a result, the situation would explode and power would be handed over to someone from the inner circle.”

Some media and websites have published allegations linking First Deputy Foreign Minister Rakhat Aliyev, the president’s son-in-law, to the slayings. He responded by issuing a statement threatening libel suits against those publishing the accusations. The statement denounced the allegations as “scurrilous lies” aimed at “destabilizing our society.”

In an article published Friday in the weekly Karavan newspaper, Aliyev’s wife, Dariga Nazarbayeva, accused the security service and the opposition of jointly launching “a finely directed information war against the family of the head of state.”

She wrote that the former head of state security, who quit to take responsibility for the alleged involvement of his agency’s employees, had spoken with her father shortly after the killings were discovered, seeking to falsely implicate the family. The security chief told Nazarbayev that he believed that either Aliyev or another son-in-law or a nephew of the president was behind the killings, she wrote, describing this as a “delirious theory.”

Various aspects of the official version of the killings have prompted widespread disbelief. One is the allegation that Utembayev, the man officially accused, borrowed $60,000 from a bank to finance the contract killing.

Also suspicious in the eyes of many is the explanation of the key breakthrough in the case. Authorities said the perpetrators were caught because two of the special service officers stole cellphones from the victims and gave them to a wife and girlfriend, who made calls traced by police. Critics question whether elite security officers can be that stupid.

“There is too much that doesn’t add up about the way everything surrounding the killing took place, and the arrest as well,” said Zhusupov, the think tank analyst.

Rysbek Sarsenbayev, the slain politician’s brother, also smells a rat.

He said that by pinning the blame on Utembayev and claiming that the motive was not political but rather a personal grudge, authorities seemed to be trying to avoid investigating more powerful figures.

“As relatives and representatives of the public,” he said, “we keep demanding that investigators take into consideration the possibility of a political murder. But this scenario has been ignored.

“My brother ... was one of the strongest opponents of the president. He actually provided a hundredfold higher grade of criticism to Nazarbayev and his circle than to Utembayev himself.... If we assume the reason for this crime is that my brother was murdered for expressing criticism, then what we have is the president’s circle and his family as possible suspects.”

Adding to suspicions is a November incident in which another top opposition leader, Zamanbek Nurkadilov, was found dead in his home of two gunshot wounds to the chest and one to his head. Authorities ruled the death a suicide, a conclusion ridiculed by critics of the government.

Salybayev, the skit organizer, said he believed that the pending bribery trial in a New York federal court of American oil consultant James Giffen helped trigger the power struggle.

Federal prosecutors accuse Giffen of giving millions of dollars in bribes to Nazarbayev, who has denied any wrongdoing. Kazakh officials have said the payments Giffen made went to accounts controlled by the state, not the president. Giffen’s trial is scheduled to start this year.

“This is a trial of an American citizen, Giffen. But Nazarbayev is involved. It will be said in court that he took bribes,” Salybayev said. “I think it will lead to his political isolation.... He will go soon for many reasons, like Kazakhgate. Who will be the successor? This is the question, and now they fight for this.”

Allegations of corruption against Nazarbayev are not new, however, and some observers question whether repetition in a U.S. court will cause him any fresh political damage.

Nazarbayev’s backers argue that he has done a good job of promoting economic growth while maintaining smooth relations between the ethnic Kazakh majority and a large ethnic Russian minority. Western-sponsored exit polls showed him winning December’s election by a large margin, although not by as much as the official figures. Nazarbayev was Kazakhstan’s boss when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and he has led the country since.

The president’s ability to weather the allegations may also be reflected in a story told in the southern city of Almaty. It aims to describe the feelings of voters who suspect that Nazarbayev has made himself wealthy but believe that the opposition is greedy too:

A man was tied naked to a tree in a forest as punishment, and a man came by and saw him completely covered with mosquitoes. Although he didn’t free him, the passerby took pity on him enough to shoo away the mosquitoes.

The bound man then erupted, ‘What did you do that for? At least those mosquitoes were well fed. Now hungry ones will come!’ ”

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Natasha Yefimova of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.