The interior ministry’s military investigative unit, which handles pre-trial investigations in the armed forces, detained the former commander-in-chief of the naval forces, a captain first rank, and placed him in a temporary detention facility for a negligent attitude to service, the ministry said in a written answer to Zakon.kz on 6 October, and a court sanctioned his arrest. Pre-trial investigation continues, the answer says, and it gives no date for the detention, no article of the Criminal Code and no term of custody. The arrest reaches the officer who commanded the navy on the day of the exercise.
Niyazbekov had led the navy since August 2025, after serving as chief of its main staff and first deputy commander, by Zakon’s account of his career. Tokayev relieved him on 3 October together with deputy defence minister Almaz Dzhumakeev and the first deputy minister and chief of the General Staff Kanysh Abubakirov, with no reasons given, two days before the presidential commission reported 13 criminal cases over possible theft of state property and abuse of office in the defence ministry’s units from the first stage of its inspection.
The arrest reaches the officer who commanded the navy on the day of the exercise.
The five officers detained on 25 September in the same case, by the ministry’s statement of that day, were the navy’s chief of staff and first deputy commander, two unit commanders, the commander of a marine infantry company and the commander of the boat. Akorda’s readout of Monday said five officials were under arrest in the negligence case, and Tuesday’s answer does not say whether Niyazbekov is a sixth.
Seventeen servicemen were swept into the sea from the patrol boat Qaisar on 24 September during a landing in bad weather off Mangystau, by the interior ministry’s account. Three were rescued and 14 died. The five are accused of a negligent attitude to service and of violating the rules of navigation, the offences of article 453 part 2 and article 465 of the Criminal Code, which carry prison terms of up to 5 and up to 7 years.
The presidential commission under Aida Balayeva reported serious miscalculations in the planning of military activities and a lack of proper control by the previous leadership, and the Higher Audit Chamber is auditing 50 defence sites, 48 of them military units. Minister Aidos Myrzakhmetov, in office since 27 September in place of Dauren Kosanov, who was dismissed after the deaths, owes a reform plan for the armed forces by Wednesday 7 October under decree 1507, and the posts of navy commander and deputy minister had no named successor on Akorda’s pages by Tuesday evening. A completed audit of the state defence order has already sent 57 recommendations and instructions to the government and the agencies concerned, by the chamber’s readout of Monday.
The dates on the record are the five officers detained on 25 September, the three relieved on 3 October, the 13 cases reported on 5 October and the commander’s arrest, announced on 6 October. What remains unclear is whether he answers for the planning the commission faulted or for the day itself.