Extremists intentionally commit crimes to preach their ideas in prisons

Kazakhstan’s prison camps have nobody to prevent spread of extremist ideas among prisoners, Interfax-Kazakhstan reports citing President of Kazakhstan Union of Veterans of Local Wars and Military Conflicts Military Brotherhood Sergey Pashevich. “It is not a secret anymore that specially trained people come to Kazakhstan and commit crimes intentionally to get imprisoned, so that they can preach extremist ideas among prisoners,” Pashevich said in the interview to Interfax-Kazakhstan. According to him, there is currently a “complete vacuum in the work with prisoners” in Kazakhstan’s correctional facilities. “As far as I know, the prisoners are not really working in prison camps these days. People are not busy and that, of course, is a good ground for such leaders who are trained psychologically and in other ways. They can influence those who serve their sentences there,” he said. Meanwhile, Pashevich pointed out that almost all the terrorists eliminated in the recent special operations in Almaty and its suburbs had links with criminals and were convicted before. “All members of the group that murdered patrol policemen were from the same prison. The second group was also made of former convicts. Despite of the fact that they served their sentences in different jails, they managed to get together and obtain arms in a short time. All that certifies that all these extremist preachers are very well organized and can unite there associates, even being in jails,” he stressed.