The former head of Kazakhstan's national atomic company Kazatomprom Mukhtar Djakishev has released a statement attempting to put an end to his isolation from the outside world.
"Last summer after the arrest I had spent over two and half months in a KNB cell in complete isolation being shut off from the outside world. Apart form KNB officers and those whom they trusted I had no chance to communicate with anyone else. I was not allowed to read the press or listen to the radio. I was in a state of complete isolation and felt helpless and threatened," Djakishev's wife Djamilya said quoting her husband's statement to the media and human rights organizations during a break in the court hearings on Friday.
That was exactly the time, Djakishev wrote in his statement, when he started experiencing serious health problems and high blood pressure. "Now I am unable to cope with the impact stress had on my health back then."
"Now I know that it was incommunicado detention prohibited by the international documents ratified by Kazakhstan. This type of detention is viewed as cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees," Djakishev said in the statement.
He had hoped that when the court started hearings, his isolation would be over. "I was mistaken. After Mr.Beisekeyev, my lawyer, got ill, I once again was held in total isolation for three months," according to the statement. Djakishev puts the blame for his ill treatment during the trial on the judge.
Dajikishev's wife said that the last time she saw her husband was on January 6. The judge has been declining her multiple motions to allow his husband visiting hours. She also added that not all newspapers and magazines she handed over to her husbands could reach him and "those that did usually had pages missing."
As reported, the hearings into the Djakishev case have been held behind closed doors since January 5 this year. The hearings were adjourned for a number of times due to the absence of the lawyer of defense among other reasons.
According to the NGO, Mukhtar Djakishev is charged with stealing the property of the national company, such theft having been repeatedly committed by an organized group has caused a severe damage to the state. Besides, Mukhtar Djakishev is indicted of taking bribes from contracting organizations to make them winners of the government procurement tenders.
Mukhtar Djakishev was arrested in May 2009 and has been in the detention facilities of the Kazakh National Security Committee (KNB) since then. Mukhtar Djakishev's wife, tried to draw public attention to her husband's deteriorating health.
The investigation into the uranium case was launched in March last year on charges of embezzlement brought against Kazatomprom top managers. The case provoked a massive public response.
Astana. February 26. Interfax-Kazakhstan
