As was fully expected, the former Turkmen General Prosecutor Gurbanbiby Atajanova has been arrested on charges of bribery. In customary fashion, she was made to confess to the crimes she has been charged with in a live television broadcast, according to a Reuters report. In the course of the confession, given directly before President Saparmurat Niyazov, Atajanova begged for forgiveness and appealed for clemency:

“Great Leader, I admit everything, but I beg you to forgive me, don’t jail me … I have three daughters”.

Though the arrest itself comes as no surprise, Atajanova’s relatively long service as General Prosecutor makes these events particularly sensational. Farid Tukhbatullin has written a detailed background piece on the event. What follow are some translated excerpts from that article, which first appeared on the opposition Gundogar website:

The peak of this woman’s campaign for influence with the country’s most powerful man came in 2002. Until that time, the most influential law enforcement organisations in the country were the Committee for National Security (KNB) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD).
As a result of various intrigues, Mukhammed Nazarov was removed from his post as Head of the KNB and replaced by Poran Berdiyev, who was then in charge of the MVD. Berdiyev too did not survive long in that position and was himself sacked on November that same year. That was how the influential chiefs of the two strongest power ministries in the country were removed from Atajanova’s way. The succeeding chiefs of the KNB (which by then had been transformed into a ministry) and the MVD did not, however, possess the same authority and experience as their predecessors, which meant that the office of the General Proseuctor headed by Atajanova became the most important of all the power ministries.
In November that same year, another event took place that would serve to further confirm Atajanova’s loyalty and strengthen her authority in Niyazov’s eyes. On the 25th of that month an assassination attempt on the president took place.

(…)

Every day, she gave a full report on the progress in the investigation. Among the people she interrogated was Yklym Yklymov, with whom I shared a cell in the MVD detention centre.
All these extraordinary events, which took place within the space of one year, put Atajanova at the top of the structures of power and she was then at the peak of her career. Even incidents like the arrest of her husband (or her daughter, according to some accounts) on a charge of-drug trafficking could not compel her to resign her post. She served her president loyally, and her indispensability was evident to Niyazov.
Instead, Niyazov recognied that she might yet come in useful in ridding him of some more potentially dangerous figures. Accordingly, in 2005, deputy Prime Minister Yolly Gurbanmuradov was unexpectedly removed from his position and subsequently arrested, as was his “counterweight” (NB. another deputy Prime Minister) Rejep Saparov, who was of the presidential administration. A number of these two ex-ministers’ henchmen were also arrested, a task carried out by the Office of the General Prosecutor.

(…)

So it was that the only remaining figure of influence in Turkmenistan was the Atajanova herself.

If Tukhbatullin is correct, then Niyazov was grilling the final remaining public figure in Turkmenistan with any significant stature in the live confession on Tuesday. Atajanova has admitted, according to the Reuters report, to stealing 25 cars, 36 villas, 2,000 cattle and 30,000 buckets. Niyazov was reportedly unmoved by Atajanova’s pleadings for compassion, though he did express some consternation at the nature of her alleged crimes:

“You have to return everything you’ve stolen. The president can’t forgive everyone. … I just don’t understand it. For example, why do you need 30,000 buckets?”