Opposition Leader Holed Up in Embassy

Kazakhstan dismissed as a “primitive criminal” a dissident former senior official holed up in the French Embassy, and the Central Asian state’s Foreign Ministry remained locked in talks to resolve the standoff.

Galymzhan Zhakiyanov, the leader of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan movement, was hiding for the third day in the embassy in the former capital, Almaty.

State television said the prosecutor general had issued an arrest warrant charging Zhakiyanov with abuse of office and illegal sales of state-run companies to “suspicious” firms at giveaway prices.

Zhakiyanov’s aides say authorities want to stifle the former Soviet republic’s fledgling democratic opposition by arresting its leaders.