Chelakh, who served 10 years for the murder of border guards, named the real criminals

Not without high-ranking officials from the KNB

The high-profile case, which shook Kazakhstan in 2012, about the shooting of the Arkankergen border outpost, where 14 border guards and a huntsman were killed, may be reviewed. The conscripted border guard Vladislav Chelakh, who was convicted of this massacre and sentenced to life, appealed to President Tokayev with a request to punish the true perpetrators of the shooting. He promised to tell the investigation everything he knew. And I already named some names.

The plot of what happened 10 years ago at the remote Arkankergen outpost in the Alma-Ata region may someday form the basis of a thriller. On May 28, the border checkpoint in the mountains stopped communicating. The duty patrol, who arrived on May 30 to clarify the circumstances, discovered a terrible picture on the spot: in the burnt barracks, 13 charred bodies lay on beds with shot through their heads, the body of a sentry was found on the river bank, and nearby in the house of a hunter, the corpse of a huntsman was found, who was also killed by a shot in head. A few days later, the only survivor came out to the outpost – 19-year-old border guard Vladislav Chelakh, who said that the outpost was attacked, and he managed to escape, because he was not in the barracks, but on patrol. Initially, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who reported on the attack, also announced the version of the attack.

But after a couple of days everything changed. The conscript Chelakh was the only accused. Vladislav, who went out on a date with his mother with poorly disguised bruises all over his face, managed to whisper to her that he had not killed anyone. Investigators also claimed that he confessed to everything. And the reason for the mass execution was allegedly hazing, although Chelakh told his relatives all six months of his service about the friendly atmosphere in the detachment and never complained about anything. The journalists were interested in the question: how did one conscript manage to put 13 colleagues with shots in the head and not one of them twitched and did not return fire.

But since the investigation became virtually uncontested, and other versions were no longer considered, people started talking that something was completely “unclean” there. And in a nightmarish tragedy, it is quite possible that high-ranking officials or security officials are involved, who staged internal disassembly. There was also talk of high-ranking poachers. Moreover, one of the victims was a huntsman who had nothing to do with the alleged “hazing”. Even the relatives of his dead colleagues did not believe in the guilt of the young border guard. Who reported that during the funeral they found signs of torture and stab wounds in their dead relatives. At the trial, they supported Chelakh’s mother and demanded a full-fledged investigation. Vladislav himself refused his signed testimony and during the trial he returned to the previous version of the attack on the outpost. However, he still received a life sentence.

It must be said that Chelakh became the only defendant after the KNB took control of the case. Therefore, the most popular unofficial version, supported by the local population of the Alma-Ata region, was the information that some high-ranking officials were resting in the hunting area near the outpost. A conflict broke out there, and the huntsman was the first victim. The border guards witnessed and intervened in the situation, as a result of which they themselves were killed at the direction of high-ranking hunters. Now, when many of those who then conducted the investigation and intimidated Chelakh, because of the January events, are themselves retired, some under investigation, the border guard who served 10 years tried again to achieve justice. It is reported that an investigator from the Prosecutor General’s Office has already visited him in the colony, to whom he named some names and gave a description of the attackers on the outpost…

Meticulous Kazakhstani journalists found out back in 2012 that next to the Arkankergen outpost there was a Tastau hunting farm, which at that time was managed by Bigali Kerimbaev, an ex-employee of the KNB of the Republic of Kazakhstan with the rank of colonel. Which also led the “Globus Special Paramilitary Guard”, consisting of former employees of the KNB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense. Among his clients were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the embassies of foreign states in Kazakhstan, Chevron Munaigas Inc., the Eurasian Development Bank, and so on. With such patrons of hunting grounds, the border guard Chelakh should not have waited for a fair trial …