Kyrgyzstan sentences former PMs to prison over China-linked graft

Two former prime ministers in Central Asian Kyrgyzstan were sentenced to long jail terms on corruption charges Friday in a trial that roiled the national elite and fuelled suspicion toward China.

Sapar Isakov, who headed the Central Asian country's government from 2017 to 2018 and Jantoro Satybaldiyev who filled the role from 2012 to 2014 were handed 15 and seven-and-a-half year prison terms respectively by the court in the capital Bishkek.

The pair were among eight defendants on trial over a nearly $400 million China-financed deal for modernising a power plant. The power plant that services the capital Bishkek, where nearly a million people live, broke down during the winter of 2018, after the project had been completed.

Isakov, 42, was an ally of 63-year-old former president Almazbek Atambayev who fell out with successor Sooronbai Jeenbekov not long after his one-time protege replaced him in 2017. Atambayev, 63, is himself currently jailed on corruption charges and is a suspect in more than a dozen other crimes, some relating to a violent standoff between his supporters and law enforcement that left one officer dead in August.

Political infighting has provided the background to the high profile power plant trial which concluded Friday, but proceedings also raised questions about how Chinese companies operate on Kyrgyz territory across the border.

Prosecutors said that Chinese contractor Tebian Electric Apparatus (TBEA) secured the $400 million deal to modernise the ageing facility thanks to Isakov's lobbying and in spite of a rival bid being cheaper.

Isakov argued that TBEA was awarded the contract because China's state-owned Exim bank made it a condition for its financing of the project.

No representative of either TBEA or Exim Bank appeared at the trial.

Among other defendants, a former head of the state energy holding was handed a 15-year sentence while two former ministers were slapped with fines. The court heard that a number of items procured for the modernization were purchased at inflated prices, including a pair of pliers for $600.

Public anger erupted over the project after the plant failed amid temperatures approaching minus 30 degrees - the coldest winter the country had seen for a decade.

The fiasco set the stage for 61-year-old Jeenbekov's consolidation of power at the expense of former patron Atambayev, who had endorsed his candidacy during presidential elections in 2017.

TBEA has completed other infrastructure projects in the region, including a key power line in Kyrgyzstan and a power plant in Tajikistan, a mountainous state bordering China and Kyrgyzstan which paid for the project with mining concessions.