Yesterday, a court in Kyrgyzstan sentenced the former president Almazbek Atambayev to 11 years in absentia on charges of corruption and participating in mass unrest. According to a report in Al Jazeera, Atambayev was found guilty of illicit enrichment, illegally acquiring land, and resisting arrest by Kyrgyzstan special forces. Kyrgyzstan has been a politically unstable country ever since the fall of the Soviet Union. An example of this was that Atambayev fell out with his successor in 2017, was arrested in 2019, then freed, and then arrested again in 2020 before being freed on medical grounds and moving to Spain in 2023. According to a report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Project (OCCRP), Atambayev was accused of embezzling funds from renovating the thermal power plant in the capital, Bishkek.  What will happen next is unclear, but Atambayev won’t return to Bishkek anytime soon.