The people of Kazakhstan can rest easy tonight as the leader of the gang thought to be behind the Zhanaozen violence last December, Vladimir Kozlov, was sentenced to seven and a half years for provoking the unrest and planning to overthrow the state.
During the trial in Aktau, Western Kazakhstan, Kozlov, the leader of the unregistered Alga! party, was tagged by an ‘expert’ analyst as having a ‘Bohemian personality’. This was most likely why he decided to form a gang with himself and tried to overthrow the state.
Astana will surely be in a ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as its court found Kozlov guilty of the charges laid against him in Kazakhstan’s first show trial of the post-Soviet era.
The whereabouts of Kozlov’s supposed ‘puppet master’ – Mukhtar Ablyazov, remain unknown since he fled Britain in March 2012 after being sent down himself.
Kazaxia 