"The men who were distributing weapons to the rioters were detained in Almaty," reads the report.
The detainees are young men aged 19-20 years.
“In the time of riots, the suspects seized the weapons from the weapons store and began distributing them to those gathered in the Republic Square. The identities of the suspects were established by the criminal police department during operational activities. They were detained on the territory of one of the city's markets. The defendants are currently in custody. We will certainly check their identities for involvement in other crimes,” said Berik Abilbekov, deputy head of the Almaty City Police Department.
According to law enforcement officers, the process of distributing weapons to the rioters fell into the camera of eyewitnesses of the tragic events. Subsequently, this video was made public through social networks.
“We attacked a gun store. There was a group of people who made us do it. Then they took half of the weapons we stole, waved their machine guns. I was driving a white Lexus,” said one of the suspects.
Another suspect said that "they were people in gas masks, armed with machine guns and knives."
“They ordered us to quickly take out the weapon and take it away. We did it because of fear, these people put pressure on us. How can you not be afraid of people with machine guns?” said another suspect.
A third suspect added that they were "driving around the city in a car, drove up to a weapons store, it was already being robbed at that time."
“They loaded weapons into our car and ordered us to take them to the square,” said one of the suspects.
Photo source: picture from an open source