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 mentioned 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, along with his household 10 years in the past. He was granted political asylum in Ukraine and, along with his spouse, ran a broadly adopted YouTube Channel overlaying 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 Fb web 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 instantly. He introduced quickly after the taking pictures that he had ordered his officers to study particulars of the incident and if needed would supplied Ukraine help in its investigation.
The Ukrainian prosecutor normal has named two residents of Kazakhstan as suspects within the taking pictures, and introduced that the case was a homicide investigation. The 2 people escaped the nation by way of neighboring Moldova, based on the prosecutor.
One of many suspects turned himself in on his return to Kazakhstan and was being questioned, based on an announcement from the Kazakhstan prosecutor’s workplace. The second man stays at massive.
Ms. Saydkova was beside her husband of their automotive on June 18 as they drove into the courtyard of their dwelling. In an interview, she mentioned she noticed a person holding a pistol with a silencer open fireplace on the automotive. He shot her husband within the head by means of the windshield, she mentioned.
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.
Mr. Sadykov was an outspoken critic of the federal government in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, and had lengthy been energetic in organizing strikes and protests, specifically amongst oil staff. The YouTube channel, named Base (pronounced Ba-zay), has a couple of million subscribers and was a supply of irritation for the federal government, buddies on the funeral mentioned.
Many followers inside Kazakhstan would ship Mr. Sadykov and Ms. Sadykova movies of protests and police brutality, which they might put up on the channel, undermining the official accounts of occasions, mentioned 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 neighborhood middle in a suburb southwest of Kyiv, and urged the true wrongdoer was President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Crimean Tatars suffered centuries of oppression underneath Moscow’s rule, and most have 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 mentioned, standing beside Mr. Sadykov’s physique, which was laid on a picket bier and coated with a material of inexperienced and gold, “He was killed in our nation. It may possibly solely have been executed 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 middle, Moscow.”
The assassination was a message to all Kazakhs, Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars and the broader neighborhood, he mentioned. “Everybody who thinks this conflict 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 worry of retribution, and Aidos’ killing whereas in asylum is deeply suspicious,” Anthony Bellanger, normal secretary of the Worldwide Federation of Journalists, mentioned in an announcement. “These accountable have to be held to account.”
