Turkmen TV parades handcuffed ex-minister

ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan: Turkmen state television on Wednesday paraded a former top security official in handcuffs and confessing to corruption after he was sacked by all-powerful President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

The Central Asian country’s tightly controlled television showed the president and security chiefs watching footage of former interior minister Isgender Mulikov in prison uniform and with his head shaved.

In office for 10 years, Mulikov was the longest-serving of the heads of Turkmenistan’s security bloc when his sacking was announced in October, with Berdymukhamedov complaining that "corruption and bribery violate the state".