In Kazakhstan, senator is accused of raiding
The Central Election Commission (CEC) of Kazakhstan did not consider a letter from the capital’s human rights activist Talas Sagimbaev demanding to deprive the senator Andrei Lukin of his deputy’s mandate. As it was explained in the CEC, this issue is not within their competence.
“We do not appoint senators,” Venera Zheksembekova, chief consultant of the Department for interaction with the media and public associations of the CEC, explained in an interview with KazTAG. “If he committed some corruption cases, let law enforcement agencies deal with it, this does not concern us. We sent a letter to the Senate.”
The most interesting thing is that the letter from the human rights activist to the CEC came from the Senate.
“On October 23, I turned to Akorda (the residence of the President of Kazakhstan, ACCA note), and demanded that the guarantor of the constitution show political will and personally intervene in the issue of depriving Lukin of his mandate,” the human rights activist said. “My letter was sent to the Senate, and the Senate sent it to the CEC. It raises the question of stripping the mandate of Lukin’s immunity.”
Recall that depriving the senator of parliamentary immunity Sagimbaev demanded not just like that, but on charges of taking property from a resident of Nur-Sultan, pensioner Shakirganova.
As the human rights activist explained, in 2017, Andrei Lukin, who was then the deputy mayor of the capital, “illegally appropriated the powers of the court, bailiffs, without a court order, evicted Shakirganova along with the children, and took their property”.
At the same time, Sagimbaev explained that Shakirganova received this apartment in 2013 by decision of the head of the state legal department of the Presidential Administration Alik Shpekbaev (now he holds the post of chairman of the Anti-Corruption Agency), his deputy Alexei Kalaychidi (now deputy minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan) and the capital’s prosecutor Kairat Raisov (now he holds the post of senior assistant to the Attorney General).
“On September 24 of this year, the pensioner Shakirganova sent a written appeal to Akorda, the Prosecutor General’s office, the Central election commission, the Senate of the Parliament on the issue of depriving Andrei Ivanovich Lukin of the mandate of immunity,” the human rights activist added.
It should be noted that Andrei Lukin was appointed to the post of deputy of the Senate of the Parliament on August 12, 2019.
Lukin began his career in 1982 as a fireman in the fire department of the Executive Committee in Tselinograd oblast. Then he worked at the MIA. From 1998 to 2003, Andrei Lukin headed the Department of housing in Astana (now Nur-Sultan), then became the head of the legal department of the Ministry of industry and trade and obtained the post of Vice Minister of industry and trade of Kazakhstan.
The next step in his career ladder was work at the Agency for combating economic and corruption crime (from 2005 to 2014).
At the end of 2014 he was appointed deputy mayor of the capital. He oversaw issues of tax and budget policy, the development of the real sector of the economy, the citizens’ call-up for military service, territorial and civil defense, and housing relations.
From August 2017 to April 2019, he served as Deputy Prosecutor General.
The human rights activist Talas Sagimbaev became widely known in Kazakhstan in 2016, when he was sentenced to 4 months for failing to execute a court decision on payment of $1000 of compensation for “moral damage” to businessman Kazhimkan Masimov, the father of the then Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Karim Masimov (now he heads the National Security Committee). Earlier, Sagimbaev lost the case in court to Kazhimkan Masimov, whom he publicly accused of dishonest business.
