446 people arrested in Kazakhstan after mass riots

Nur –Sultan, SANA- Kazakhstan’s law enforcement agencies have arrested 446 people under criminal investigations into the mass riots, Serik Shalabayev, chief of the criminal prosecution service of Kazakhstan’s Prosecutor General’s Office, has said at a briefing.

“As of today, the investigation team in looking into 546 criminal cases, including 44 as terror acts, 34 as mass riots and 15 more as homicide. As many as 672 suspects have been placed in detention centers. Of those, 446 have been taken into custody upon court authorization,” Shalabayev was cited by TASS Agency as saying.

Shalabayev pointed out that about 100 people were released after their IDs had been verified and no grounds for their detention had been found.

On Jan. 5^th, President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, declared a state of emergency after the outbreak of violence and riots that claimed the lives of dozens of civilians and Kazakh security personnel, in which foreign criminals and killers participated, and it was later lifted from many areas after the return of security and stability to them.

Ruaa al-Jazaeri