A recent report on the Deutsche Welle website attributes the latest wave of purges to an ongoing campaign to uproot corruption in the Office of General Prosecutor. President Saparmurat Niyazov personally announced the nature of the criminal charges being brought against the former General Prosecutor Gurbanbibi Atajanova during an expanded senior officials’ meeting at the Prosecutor General’s headquarters last Monday:

“Flagrant facts of lawlessness practiced by Atajanova and her subordinates have been revealed. … [Ordinary citizens] have complained about illegal searches conducted in their homes, about the unlawful detention of their relatives, and about blackmail and extortion, practiced by individual prosecutors.
Atajanova used her official position to cover for her criminal relatives. Her adopted son, a drug addict, who had got a job at the Investigation Department of the Tejen police under Atajanova’s patronage, assisted drug dealers instead of fighting crime.”

Niyazov also went on to state that according to data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, it was not Turkmen citizens committing crime in the country, but the civil servants.
Some of the bribery is taking place within the context of the mass prisoner amnesties that take place every year, when thousands of convicts are released by presidential decree. In remarks broadcast on television, Niyazov has bemoaned the fact that Atajanova’s has been making ample use of this opportunity to extort bribes. Niyazov also urged his officials to ensure that the next wave of amnesties not be tainted by impropriety.
According to the Turkmen Helsinki Foundation, in all her years as General Prosecutor, Atajanova has used extortion as the main basis on whom to put on the amnesty lists. Atajanova allegedly took $50,000 for her services in the beginning, but this sum eventually grew to $300,000.
On occasion the bribes would be smaller, according to the means of those paying them. Sometimes, people would be arrested merely to force them to pay bribes, which their relatives would sometimes have to sell their cattle and belongings to raise the money for. As one person told DW:

“They would put people on trial and in jail on purpose. Just so they would have to pay up. Even a person hasn’t got much, they can find $500 somewhere, so as to get their relatives out of jail.”

A source in the Turkmen justice system told DW that among prosecutors there is even a register with information about “who is who”, and how large an amount of money certain individuals would have to pay to be amnestied:

“If, say, a person is a drug dealer, then they will have to pay as much as $50,000.”

DW’s source also maintains that the use of amnesty for gathering bribes was not a practise started by Atajanova. Around the time of the first general amnesties, a similar method was used by the president’s press secretary Kakamurad Balliyev, who would extort various sums of money, as well as carpets and other objects of value.
This business was later taken over by the power ministries. In 2000-2002, the Committee of National Security (KNB, the successor of the KGB) took control of the process of assembling the amnesty list. Even at that time, Atajanova had some control over the process. According to DW’s source, the scope for extortion increased drastically when, under the tutelage of Atajanova, the Office of the General Prosecutor, the police, and the KNB were merged. Well-to-do individuals would be arrested on trumped up charges and their property confiscated.
Atajanova’s dramatic fall from grace also threatens to engulf people surrounding her. According to an Associated Press article, Niyazov dismissed his Culture Minister Maral Byashimova for living with a man who was not her husband. The man in question was Atajanova’s son-in-law/
In a statement, Minister of National Security Geldymukhamed Ashirmukhamedov stated that Byashimova has had one son by Atajanova’s son-in-law, in addition to one son by her husband.
In a televised Cabinet meeting, Niyazov remarked that ministers were obliged to set a correct example for Turkmen people and “should not have two husbands”.
Byashimova will be replaced by the head of the Women’s Union, Enebai Atayeva.