Brother of former Kyrgyz president flees prison

The brother of former Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has failed to return to a correctional facility after receiving treatment in a civilian hospital and is now a fugitive, a source in the regional corrections service said. Ahmad Bakiyev was serving a seven-year term for organizing riots in the summer of 2010. He was convicted in August 2011 on charges of organizing riots, inciting ethnic hatred, extortion and fraud. He was sentenced to a maximum security facility, but was transferred to a penal colony settlement in Bishkek on January 4, 2012. “In January Bakiyev was admitted to a hospital in Bishkek with pneumonia. He was supposed to return to the colony to serve out his sentence on March 3, but did not do so,” the source said. Ahmad's brother, former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, fled into exile after he was ousted in a mass uprising in April 2010. The unrest led to a bloody ethnic conflict between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks living in the nation's south. The new authorities have stated that the organizers of riots were revenge-seekers who supported Bakiyev.