[FILES] Healthcare worker administering a covid jab
A man walks past a car that burned down during protests sparked by rising fuel prices in Almaty, Kazakhstan. [Pavel Mikheyev/Reuters
The National Security Committee, or KNB, said in a statement that its former chief Karim Masimov had been detained on Thursday after it launched an investigation into charges of high treason.
“On January 6 of this year the National Security Committee launched a pre-trial investigation into high treason,” the statement said.
“On the same day, on suspicion of committing this crime, former chairman of the KNB K.K. Masimov was detained and placed in a temporary detention centre, along with others.”
Masimov, a close ally of Kazakhstan’s founding president Nursultan Nazarbayev, was sacked from his post as head of the KNB this week after protesters in Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty stormed government buildings.