Security officials in Kazakhstan said Wednesday that the recently imprisoned former chief of the country's nuclear power agency illegally sold uranium mining rights to overseas companies.
Former Kazatomprom boss Mukhtar Dzhakishev took part in crooked deals that squandered the Central Asian state's uranium resources and netted him tens of thousands of dollars, the KNB security service said.
The accusations by the KNB — the Kazakh successor to the Soviet KGB — came less than a week after Dzhakishev was replaced as head of the country's atomic-energy and uranium-mining monopoly and thrown behind bars.
"Preliminary results of the investigation show that Mukhtar Dzhakishev and other managers…. squandered state property in the form of Kazakhstan's largest uranium fields by handing them to a number of offshore companies," the KNB said in a statement.
The KNB mentioned one transaction approved by Dzhakishev in 2005 that saw a 30 percent share in the Kyzylkum uranium mine — partly owned by a subsidiary of Canada's Uranium One — transfered to an offshore bank account.
The statement did not accuse the Canadian firm of any wrongdoing in the case. It said Dzhakishev made 103,000 dollars (74,000 euros) in the deal.
Kazakhstan, an ex-Soviet republic bordering Russia and China, holds almost 20 percent of the world's uranium reserves and aims to be the number one producer by 2010, overtaking Australia and Canada.
The country is keen to be seen as a global player in issues of nuclear security. Last year, Kazakhstan mined around 8,500 tonnes of uranium and plans to extract 11,900 tonnes in 2009, according to Kazatomprom.
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