"The charge brought against me is a political order. I believe this criminal case has no judicial future, and its principal aim is to prevent the collecting of signatures for establishing an interstate union between Kyrgyzstan and the Russian Federation and other states," Kulov told journalists Friday.
Kulov's lawyer said on Wednesday that he had been formally charged by the State Committee for National Security with staging mass riots in the country in April. Prior to that, Kulov was involved in the case as a witness.
Authorities sanctioned the arrest of three of Kulov's associates in the United Front movement for organizing protest meetings in the Central Asian country's capital, Bishkek, on April 11, which were dispersed on April 19. They were released after Kulov offered to go to jail in their place.
A former political prisoner who came to power together with President Kurmanbek Bakiyev on the back of violent mass protests in March 2005 known as the "tulip revolution," Kulov said earlier this year that his main objective was to prevent a split between the country's relatively prosperous north and poorer south, which is where Bakiyev is from.
The United Front accuses Bakiyev of failing to improve living standards, curb corruption and introduce democracy in the impoverished ex-Soviet republic. The mass protests organized by the opposition demanded the president's resignation and early elections.
