Pavlyuk was on Kyrgyz ‘blacklist,’ widow says

ALMATY – Yelena Pavlyuk testified June 8 that her slain husband, Gennady Pavlyuk, heard in 2009 he had been placed on a “blacklist” of reporters out of favour with former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s administration, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported June 9.

Testifying at the trial of three suspects charged in connection with Pavlyuk’s murder, she said he had enjoyed success as a journalist until Bakiyev gained power in 2005. He heard in 2009 that a state board monitoring media outlets had placed him on a “blacklist,” she said. Sources close to the government told him Bakiyev’s son, Maksim, said openly he did not want “to see or hear Gennady Pavlyuk,” she added.

Pavlyuk was lured to Almaty and thrown, bound hand and foot, out of a sixth-storey window in December 2009. A former Kyrgyz intelligence officer and two Kazakhstanis are on trial for Pavlyuk’s slaying.