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Former Turkmenistan Official Confesses
Turkmenistan's former foreign minister accepted blame for an alleged assassination attempt on the president, and heaped praise on the leader in a televised confession Sunday. Boris Shikhmuradov's admission was the latest in a series of televised confessions by people accused of involvement in a recent plot to kill President Sapurmurat Niyazov, who has all but eradicated the opposition after 23 years in power in this impoverished country. Shikhmuradov previously denied any involvement and accused Niyazov of staging the assassination attempt as a pretext for cracking down on government opponents. On Sunday, Shikhmuradov, speaking slowly, begged for forgiveness and said there was no such thing as a Turkmen opposition, but merely a "criminal group" which sought to take power. "Living in Russia, we took drugs and recruited mercenaries to commit terrorist attacks," Shikhmuradov said. "We were attempting to commit a crime, the goal of which was to take the life of the president and change the constitutional order." Douglas Davidson, the U.S. representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, called this month for an investigation into the Nov. 25 assassination attempt, saying there were reports some confessions were extracted by torture. Y'don't say? Stalin would have been proud... Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-12-29 |
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