«The parliamentary decision to remove an ex-president’s status of immunity from me does not have legal force — the law establishing or aggravating responsibility has no retroactive effect,» stated the ex-president of Kyrgyzstan Almazbek Atambayev, answering the question from Open Central Asia magazine what were his feelings about the situation that evolved to ultimately remove his ex-presidential immunity.

As noted, the former leader of the country gave the interview just hours before his arrest.

«The parliament removes from me only the status of ex-president, but the procedure for depriving political integrity is not spelled out in it. That is, from the legal side, all of this is not valid and unconstitutional,» the ex-head of Kyrgyzstan said.

«I was summoned to come as a witness in the case of criminal authority by Batukaev. I have nothing to hide in this case, I have already told everything to the media and now I am preparing written evidence. But, I remember how they treated Sapar Isakov and Kuban Kulmatov, my supporters, who also went to the GKNB allegedly for a simple interrogation, and afterwards they were arrested. The Constitutional Court is now considering our interrogation complaint. It is the court, who will put an end to this and to how much further events will develop,» Almazbek Atambayev stressed.