BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Authorities in Kyrgyzstan said the trial of a relative of the former president on charges related to ethnic clashes in the country's south resumed Wednesday.
Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted as president in an April coup and fled from his stronghold in the south of Kyrgyzstan to Belarus.
The interim government arrested Akmat Bakiyev, the president's brother, in June after ethnic clashes in the southern regions of Osh and Jalal Abad left more than 400 people dead.
Akmat Bakiyev faces charges of inciting attacks on law enforcement officials, illegal possession of weapons and stoking ethnic sentiments in the south of Kyrgyzstan in the wake of the April coup.
His lawyers asked the court Wednesday to release him under house arrest for the duration of the trial because of health problems, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports.
The deposed president and other members of his family are being tried in absentia for their role in deaths related to the April coup.
An official investigation into ethnic violence that gripped southern Kyrgyzstan after the coup blamed Uzbek leaders and Bakiyev backers for the conflict. Central Asian experts told the BBC, however, that the probe fell short of an "honest investigation."
