The head of a top police academy in Kazakhstan has been fired after a subordinate equated the country’s police force to a criminal gang in a video that went viral on social media.
The Kazakh Interior Ministry announced that General Zhan Kenzhetaev had been sacked as the director of the police academy in the central city of Qaraghandy.
The dismissal comes a day after Interior Ministry spokesman Almas Sadubaev said on Facebook that A.R. Tastaibekov, who was the deputy chief in charge of cadets at the academy in Qaraghandy, had been fired for "committing an act that discredits state services."
Authorities say it was Tastaibekov who appears in an incriminating video shot on December 31. In the video, the individual identified by the Interior Ministry as Tastaibekov wishes a prosperous future for Kazakhstan so the police, the "bratva" - a term usually meaning a criminal gang - can thrive for generations to come, RFE/RL reported.
