You're reading: Deposed Kyrgyz president’s brother flees detention

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Prison officials in Kyrgyzstan say the jailed brother of deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev fled detention while recovering from pneumonia at a medical center.

The State Penitentiary Service’s said Tuesday that police are working to establish Akhmat Bakiyev’s whereabouts. He had been undergoing treatment since late January.

Akhmat Bakiyev was sentenced last year to seven years in jail on charges including his role in inciting ethnic clashes in 2010 between Uzbek and Kyrgyz communities in the city of Osh, in which hundreds were killed.

The clashes broke out two months after Kurmanbek Bakiyev fled the country in the wake of bloody anti-government riots in the capital Bishkek.

Kyrgyzstan is also trying to secure the former president’s deportation from Belarus.