Kyrgyz second ex-PM charged over power plant collapse

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan: A former prime minister of Kyrgyzstan has been arrested and charged with corruption following a scandal that saw a power plant fail as temperatures plummeted in the ex-Soviet nation last winter.

Zhantoro Satybaldiyev is the second ex-premier to be arrested in relation to the $400-million (350-million-euro) modernisation programme of the main power plant in the capital Bishkek.

Satybaldiyev was also charged with "abetting a crime" and will remain in custody during the course of the investigation, Kyrgyzstan´s state committee for national security said late

Wednesday.

The move follows the arrest earlier this month of ex-premier Sapar Isakov on charges of lobbying in the interest of TBEA, a Chinese company that later won the contract to carry out

the multi-million-dollar renovation.

The power plant collapsed in January, just months after the project´s completion, triggering a public uproar. Both Satybaldiyev and Isakov served as presidential chiefs of staff under Kyrgyzstan´s ex-leader Almazbek Atambayev before being parachuted into the position of prime minister in 2012 and 2017 respectively.