Astana rejects possibility of Chinese border attack

    By D. Mukhtarov
    Statements given by Vladislav Chelakh, who is accused of killing 15 people at the Arkankergen border post, on an attack fr om China are equivalent to a claim of an alien invasion, Presidential Adviser Ermuhambet Yertysbayev told Trend by phone.
    "It would have sounded more truthful if Chelakh said the border post was attacked by aliens or Dzhungars, that were hiding in the mountains since the 17^th century (Dzhungars were ancient tribes that made raids on the Kazakh steppe)," Yertysbayev said.
    According to reports from the Kazakh media, Yerzhan Moldagaliev who was a witness at the hearing Monday, said that immediately after the arrest Vladislav Chelakh had said that in his opinion, Arkankergen had been attacked by China.
    Moldagaliev is a soldier from the Usharal border detachment , who discovered Chelakh in a shepherd's winter hut a few days after the tragedy.
    "He said that we were attacked by the Chinese. When I asked why he thought so, he couldn't explain it" the witness said, citing the conversation.
    The witness also stated that Chelakh told him he had returned to the border post, sometime after the attack, and found his colleagues dead, and doused the place with gasoline and burned it.
    "He said he was afraid he would be accused ," Moldagaliev said.
    The massacre at Arkankergen temporary border post, wh ere 15 border guards serve in summer, took place in late May. The post stopped contact and border duty was sent there from the Sari Bokter border post. Arriving border guards found that the barracks building was burned with bodies of 14 victims inside. In addition, a hunter's body was found in the nearby winter hut.
    A few days later, the only border guard who survived, the 19-year-old soldier Chelakh was detained.
    After his arrest, he confessed the murder of fellow soldiers and hunters, but later refuted his confession, saying that he was psychologically pressured, Trend states.