A small crowd of mourners gathered on Friday for the funeral of the Kazakh opposition activist and YouTuber Aidos Sadykov, who was assassinated in Kyiv, Ukraine — a killing that colleagues stated had solid a chill over journalists and exiles in Ukraine and the broader area.
A former opposition politician and commerce unionist, Mr. Sadykov, 55, lived in Ukraine after fleeing Kazakhstan, his homeland, together with his household 10 years in the past. He was granted political asylum in Ukraine and, together with his spouse, ran a broadly adopted YouTube Channel masking occasions in Kazakhstan.
He was shot final month outdoors their dwelling, and died of his accidents earlier this week. Natalia Sadykova, his widow and a journalist, has laid the blame for her husband’s loss of life on President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan.
“Aidos gave his life for Kazakhstan. He died a martyr’s loss of life by the hands of killers,” she wrote on her Facebook page, asserting his loss of life. “For 13 days, Aidos fought for his life within the I.C.U., however there was no miracle. His loss of life is on Tokayev’s conscience.”
The president of Kazakhstan has not addressed Ms. Sadykova’s accusations immediately. He announced quickly after the capturing that he had ordered his officers to study particulars of the incident and if obligatory would supplied Ukraine help in its investigation.
The Ukrainian prosecutor normal has named two residents of Kazakhstan as suspects within the capturing, and announced that the case was a homicide investigation. The 2 people escaped the nation by way of neighboring Moldova, in keeping with the prosecutor.
One of many suspects turned himself in on his return to Kazakhstan and was being questioned, in keeping with a statement from the Kazakhstan prosecutor’s workplace. The second man stays at giant.
Ms. Saydkova was beside her husband of their automobile on June 18 as they drove into the courtyard of their dwelling. In an interview, she stated she noticed a person holding a pistol with a silencer open hearth on the automobile. He shot her husband within the head by means of the windshield, she stated.
Mr. Sadykov was taken to a hospital and survived in a coma for 2 weeks earlier than succumbing to his wounds. He leaves behind his spouse and three youngsters, ages 13, 12 and 5.
Once they lived in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, each Mr. Sadykov and Ms. Sadykova had been the targets of prosecutions that they stated had been politically motivated. He spent two years in jail, and she or he confronted the prospect of imprisonment after they fled.
Mr. Sadykov was an outspoken critic of the Kazakh authorities and had lengthy been energetic in organizing strikes and protests, particularly amongst oil staff. His YouTube channel, named Base (pronounced Ba-zay), has a couple of million subscribers and was a supply of irritation for the federal government, pals on the funeral stated.
Many followers inside Kazakhstan would ship in movies of protests and police brutality, which the channel would put up, undermining the official accounts of occasions, stated Vladimir Kozlov, a former political prisoner in Kazakhstan.
Refat Chubarov, the chief of the Crimean Tatar motion in Ukraine, spoke on the funeral in a Muslim group heart in a suburb southwest of Kyiv, and urged the actual offender was President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Crimean Tatars suffered centuries of oppression below Moscow’s rule, and most had been forcibly resettled to Central Asia within the Nineteen Forties.
“Aidos was killed by those that do not desire a free and unbiased Kazakhstan,” he stated, standing beside Mr. Sadykov’s physique, which was laid on a wood bier and lined with a fabric of inexperienced and gold, “He was killed in our nation. It might probably solely have been finished by those that wish to destroy all of us. I don’t know who did this, however it’s clear it’s coming from the enemy of us all, from one heart, Moscow.”
The assassination was a message to all Kazakhs, Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars and the broader group, he stated. “Everybody who thinks this warfare is not going to contact them, they need to suppose once more.”
Worldwide journalists’ organizations have deplored the killing and known as for a full investigation.
“Journalists have to be free to function with out concern of retribution, and Aidos’ killing whereas in asylum is deeply suspicious,” Anthony Bellanger, normal secretary of the Worldwide Federation of Journalists, stated in an announcement. “These accountable have to be held to account.”