A few months after the unrest that swept across Kazakhstan prompted President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to take action to reduce the influence of his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev, one of the focal points of his reform has been the domestic intelligence agency, the KNB. As the investigation into the former head of the agency accused of treason, Karim Massimov, continues in full swing, one of his former allies, Marat Beketayev, has switched camp to join the administration.

Ex-minister of justice, Beketayev, who had been Massimov's adviser from the time when he was prime minister, is understood to even be willing to testify against his former boss, according to our sources. All details of Massimov's upcoming trial are being treated as top secret.

Reassured new ally

Thanks to his change of allegiance and his earlier connections within the Kazakh government, Beketayev stepped down as minister in January to become an adviser to Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov. He has also remained the link between Karim Massimov and Patokh Chodiev, of the powerful mining conglomerate Eurasian Resources Group (ERG, formed from a restructuring of ENRC), after he was given a role of non-executive director and representative of the Kazakh government from 2008 and 2014, which he used to force the ENRC to pay for his lavish holidays throughout the year.  

Portrayed by Tokayev's inner circle as the main organiser of the January riots, Massimov and his former KNB deputies Anuar Sadykulov, Daulet Yergozhin and Marat Osipov are being held behind bars. Tokayev's former first deputy at the KNB, Nazarbayev's nephew Samat Abish has been keeping out of the public eye since he was fired on 17 January [IO, 15/02/22].

Birth of KNB 2.0

Under Ermek Sagimbayev [IO, 25/02/22], who took over the helm at Tokayev's request in January, the KNB has undergone a complete overhaul, with sweeping changes to both staff and its organisation. This has allowed the Kazakh president to position a number of his allies within the service and make structural changes. His latest appointment was to place Yerlan Aldazhumanov in charge of the border guard service on 23 May after the dismissal of Darkhan Dilmanov in April [IO, 13/04/22].

A decree signed on 18 May details the reunification of the KNB's operational services. For example, two information security bodies have been merged into a single centre for technical protection of information and training of specialists in the protection of state secrets.

Conversely, the border guard service has been broken into smaller units: its Almaty, Mangystau and East Kazakhstan branches have lost their supply services, which are now separate from the KNB. It was in these three large regions of strategic importance that the January protests first started.