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Over 440 people arrested in Kazakhstan after mass riots - Prosecutor General’s Office

As many as 672 suspects have been placed in detention centers

NUR-SULTAN, January 15. /TASS/. Kazakhstan’s law enforcement agencies have arrested 446 people under criminal investigations into the mass riots, Serik Shalabayev, chief of the criminal prosecution service of Kazakhstan’s Prosecutor General’s Office, said at a briefing on Saturday.

"As of today, the investigation team in looking into 546 criminal cases, including 44 as terror acts, 34 as mass riots and 15 more as homicide. As many as 672 suspects have been placed in detention centers. Of those, 446 have been taken into custody upon court authorization," he said.

Shalabayev pointed out that about 100 people were released after their IDs had been verified and no grounds for their detention had been found.

"The required investigation procedures are underway now," he added.

Protests erupted in several Kazakh cities on January 2, escalating into mass riots with government buildings getting ransacked in several cities, primarily in Almaty, a few days later. The ensuing violence left thousands of people injured, with fatalities also being reported. Subsequently, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev turned to the Collective Security Treaty Organization requesting assistance from the Russia-led bloc. As a result, peacekeepers were deployed to Kazakhstan. Law and order, Kazakh authorities affirm, was restored to all of the country’s regions.