One of ousted Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's sons, Maxim Bakiyev, received a temporary political asylum in Great Britain on Friday.
Maxim Bakiyev, the second son of ousted Kyrgyz leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was detained on Monday by the U.K. Border Agency after landing at Farnborough airport in southern England in a rented private jet. He has been charged with money laundering and was on the Interpol wanted list.
"I have been forced into exile in fear for my life. The interim government in Kyrgyzstan accuses me of new crimes every day," The Daily Telegraph quoted Maxim as saying in a statement from Carter-Ruck Solicitors.
The source said that a decision to grant Maxim Bakiyev permanent political asylum is possible after the entire circumstances of events become clear.
"Maxim has indeed received temporary political asylum from British authorities," the source said, adding: "It's difficult for me to say how that looks from a legal point of view, but it is clear to us that British authorities are not ready to react to the emotional statements made by the interim Kyrgyz authorities."
"Mr. Bakyiev was screened in accordance with normal procedures for port of entry asylum claims, and then granted temporary admission pending the consideration of his claim," Carter-Ruck Solicitors said in a statement.
Carter-Ruck Solicitors earlier represented interests of Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who was granted political asylum in the United Kingdom in 2003.
The Kyrgyz Prosecutor's General's Office initially charged Maxim Bakiyev with embezzling millions of dollars of a loan from Russia. According to prosecutors he had placed $35 million of a $300 million loan from Russia into his private bank accounts while in office.
The interim government later said it suspected him of organizing and financing the recent deadly clashes in the country's two southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad, which left some 200 people dead.
"The charges are bogus, to divert attention from their own crimes. They accuse me before there has been any opportunity for an investigation. Clearly they seek to try to make me a scapegoat for the chaos in the country," Maxim Bakiyev said.
"I view events in my homeland with horror and pray for an end to the violence," he added.
Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who took refuge in Belarus after being ousted as a result of mass riots in April, told a news conference in Minsk on Monday that the accusations against him and his family were "groundless."
Some 200 people died and thousands were injured in clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek groups in southern Kyrgyzstan. The unrest broke out in the city of Osh on June 11 and then spread to the neighboring Jalalabad region.
MOSCOW / LONDON, June 18 (RIA Novosti)
