Kyrgyz Investigative Website Editor Attacked In Bishkek

Three men attacked Bolot Temirov near the website’s office in Bishkek, beating him and robbing him of his mobile phone, his colleagues said.

Paramedics gave Temirov emergency medical assistance at the scene. He then accompanied police officers to a police station to file a written complaint.

Temirov’s colleagues also said that several athletic-looking men were observed the previous day near the office while asking passers-by about the location of the FactCheck office.

Last month, the FactCheck website was hacked along with the sites of several online news resources that used FactCheck’s materials.

FactCheck mainly investigates corruption allegedly committed by officials.

Temirov’s site and the open source investigative organization Bellingcat have recently probed the fortune of the former deputy chief of Kyrgyz customs, Raimbek Matraimov, and his relatives, who are at the center of a corruption scandal around the alleged funneling some $1 billion from Kyrgyzstan.