The day after Kamchybek Tashiev’s trial ended with a guilty verdict, the former head of the State Committee for National Security was seen heading towards the VIP section of Kurmanbek Stadium in Manas (formerly Jalal-Abad) to watch a Kyrgyz Premier League match between Muras United and Asiagol.
July 2A Bishkek judge has delivered his verdict in the so-called “Letter of 75” case.
Tashiev, along with former Jogorku Chairman Kenesh Nurlanbek Turgunbek uulu, former MP Kurmankul Zulushev and five others, were found guilty of attempted coup d’état under Article 326 (“Violent seizure or maintenance of power, as well as attempted violent change of the constitutional order”) and acquitted of charges of abuse of power.
Although Tashiev and the others were sentenced to four years in prison, the judge replaced their prison sentence with three years of supervised probation. The five defendants who were in detention were released. Tashiev did not spend a single day in detention.
The judge justified changing the prison sentences to probation because the convicted conspirators failed to commit the crime.
As reported RFE/RL Kyrgyz Servicea court statement explains that “it is not a completed crime, as provided for in Article 326 of the Criminal Code of the Kyrgyz Republic, which has been established, but a preparation for its commission.”
The release then cited “the personalities of the defendants and their potential for rehabilitation without serving a prison sentence” to justify probation.
The trial began in mid-May and was immediately closed to the public. At the request of the defendants, the trial opened in mid-June only for Tashiev to call out a witness in front of the media. The trial was later reclassified.
The “Letter of the 75” affair concerns an appeal signed by 75 public figures who urged Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov to call an early presidential election. The letter notably presents a framework favorable to Tashiev, emphasizing that many of the biggest successes of the Japarov administration – such as the final settlement of the borders with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan – were initiatives led by the security chief. Just suggesting that Tashiev would present an attractive presidential option blew up the ruling tandem. He led the powerful State Committee for National Security, an organization with historical roots in the Soviet-era KGB, from May 2021 until its tragedy. dramatic dismissal in February, just two days after the letter began circulating.
Tashiev is far from the first person accused of plotting a coup under the Japarov administrationalthough the accusation is sometimes referred to as “incitement mass unrest» as in the case of two Kloop cameramen sentenced to five-year prison sentences in September 2025.
That Tashiev – convicted of a coup plot – spends his Friday evenings in the VIP section of a football stadium while Kyrgyz journalists and musicians stay in prison, or exilefor denouncing his family’s corruption (reporting that the state effectively plagiarized to punish Tahsiev, his family and his wider network) says everything that needs to be said about the nature of justice and politics in Kyrgyzstan.
Kyrgyzstan has the most tumultuous political record in Central Asia, with three revolutions in 35 years: 2005, 2010 and 2020. The 2020 revolution brought Japarov and his longtime ally Tashiev to power together, but now that tandem is broken.
Japarov surely has his eyes on January 2027, when he will invariably seek re-election. The end of the trial against Tashiev does not really mark the end of his existence as a political force.