Nurlan Konoyev, the nephew of a controversial businessman and politician killed in May, died after being shot at pointblank range at a prestigious lake resort in the northwest of the Central Asian republic.
His uncle, Ryspek Akmatbayev, a critic of the government and a suspect in criminal investigations into three murders and organizing a criminal group, was gunned down May 10. Akmatbayev had won a parliamentary by-election on April 9 and was to take the seat formerly occupied by his brother, Tynychbek Akmatbayev, who was himself killed with three aides while negotiating with prison inmates rioting over poor conditions in October 2005.
Konoyev was in a bar on Issyk Kul, the world's second largest mountain lake, with his bodyguard, when unidentified gunmen approached him and opened fire with what is presumed to be a Makarov pistol. Konoyev died of wounds in the hospital and his bodyguard is in intensive care.
Akmatbayev, who the country's election commission had refused permission to sit in parliament until a court decision, had been reportedly among those behind a wave of unrest in the capital, Bishkek, in late April following a velvet revolution in the former Soviet state in spring 2005. People rallied to demand robust reform, and measures to curb corruption and crime.
The Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported at the time that President Kurmanbek Bakiyev had met the latter demand dismissing almost all the figures on protesters' list just several hours before Akmatbayev was killed.
Nurlan Konoyev and Tynychbek Akmatbayev faced robbery and murder charges in 1996 and 2004 respectively, but were cleared.
Kyrgyzstan's economy has been in tatters since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and loss of many of Soviet-era economic ties. The 2005 "tulip revolution" does not seem to have changed much so far as the new government has delayed many crucial reforms, and corruption continues to plague society.
