Journalist Makhambet Abzhan detained in Nur-Sultan

In early morning of July 3, Makhambet Abzhan, the founder of the telegram channel ABZHAN NEWS, was detained in Nur-Sultan.

According to the anti-corruption service, the journalist is suspected of extorting 50 million tenge from an entrepreneur for non-dissemination of defamatory information. According to the anticorruption service, Abzhan was caught red-handed and placed in the detention center of the city of Nur-Sultan.

A day earlier, Abzhan reposted a message from another Telegram channel saying that  a pre-trial investigation against him was about to be  iniciated. It was assumed that he would be charged for  insulting the president, but it was also possible that he would be accused of committing an economic crime in order  not to turn the case into a political issue.

Earlier this year, Abzhan was accused of defamation for publishing an article about a landfill in Pavlodar, but the plaintiff withdrew the lawsuit. At the beginning of the year, a pre-trial investigation was iniciated against the journalist. He was suspected of calling for a rally and insulting the police, but the expert evidence refuted this assumption.

The remarkable fact is that the money was transferred in the old-fashioned way, in cash and video of the detention was distibuted promptly. It shows the policemen counting the banknotes in an emphatic manner and putting them in the plastic bags prepared beforehand.

The amount of the "compensation" is also impressive - what sins did assumably big businessman tried to conceal for 50 million?

A number of news websites have already  gloated over their colleague.

Adil Soz is searching for a lawyer for Makhambet and intends to keep an eye on the investigation.