By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 23, 2006

MOSCOW, Feb. 22 -- The murder of a prominent opposition leader in Kazakhstan this month continued to reverberate Wednesday as the head of the country's intelligence service quit following the arrest of five of his subordinates for alleged involvement in the killing.

The Kazakhstan Today news agency also reported that police had arrested the administration chief of the country's senate on suspicion of involvement in the killing of Altynbek Sarsenbayev. The crime is generating increasing political pressure on the government of President Nursultan Nazarbayev .

Kazakh officials said Tuesday that they had arrested five members of an elite unit within the country's National Security Committee, the successor of the Soviet-era KGB, for carrying out the killing.

A sixth man, who allegedly ordered the murder, was arrested Monday but has not been identified. Opposition leaders said they had information that he is a retired law-enforcement official.

From the moment Sarsenbayev was found shot in the back and head on an isolated road outside the city of Almaty on Feb. 13, opposition leaders charged that the killing was politically motivated and the country's security services were involved. Sarsenbayev's bodyguard and driver were also found with him, shot and killed and their hands tied behind their backs. The three had disappeared two days earlier.

The opposition's accusations were denied by the government, which said the killing was probably related to a family or financial dispute.

The president said Tuesday that the killers would get "the severest punishment." The FBI is assisting in the investigation to ensure that it is conducted in a fair and open way, according to government officials.

Sarsenbayev, 43, a former government minister and ambassador, broke with Nazarbayev in 2003 and went on to found the Nagyz Ak Zhol party. The group backed a united opposition candidate in a presidential election in December, which was won by Nazarbayev with an official tally of 91 percent of the vote.

Nartai Dutbayev, head of the National Security Committee, submitted a letter of resignation and met Wednesday with Nazarbayev, who accepted his decision to step down, according to the president's office.

"I believe that I have no moral right to head the National Security Committee, in the given situation," Dutbayev said after the meeting, according to the president's office. He said the arrested security agents, members of the special operations Tiger unit, "betrayed their duty and the interests of the people."