The Disinformation Centre has refuted the information from the ORDA Telegram channel about the alleged detention of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Murat Nurtleu and businessman Haji Hajiyev. Experts suspect a targeted information dump via a popular publication.
Today, the ORDA Telegram channel published information about the alleged detention of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murat Nurtleu, businessman Haji Hajiyev, and several senior officials of the National Security Committee (KNB).
The publication claims that Nurtleu was detained at his home after returning from the SCO summit in China and that a search was conducted at his property. Law enforcement agencies were cited as the source of the information.
"We have precise information: along with Nurtleu and Hajiyev, several senior officials of the National Security Committee have been detained. This includes the former director of the foreign intelligence service, Askar Amerkhanov, one of the current deputy chairmen of the KNB, as well as the well-known Altai Zhakanbaev and Meiram Karataev," the ORDA report stated.
However, the press service of the Disinformation Centre has categorically denied this information.
"The information spread on the resources of Gulnara Bazhkenova (Orda and Bazhkenova vs.) about the alleged detention of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Murat Nurtleu, and businessman Haji Hajiyev does not correspond to reality," the Centre stated.
In turn, the Telegram channel Elmedia suggests that the situation may be linked to a targeted information dump — an attempt to use the publication's reputation to spread fake news.
"Particular attention is drawn to the figure of Gulnara Bazhkenova, the creator of ORDA and a journalist with a high level of audience trust. Behind the scenes, the version being discussed is that she was deliberately 'fed' false information, knowing that she would not publish it without double-checking, meaning trust in the source was high," the statement read.
Journalists do not rule out that someone with an interest could have used ORDA "as a channel to test public reaction or with the aim of discrediting the editorial team itself."
This is far from the first reputational scandal involving ORDA. Previously, the publication has repeatedly been involved in legal proceedings over copyright infringement.
In July 2024, a court ordered ORDA to pay the publication Ratel 3.69 million tenge for plagiarism. In October, Gulnara Bazhkenova filed an appeal, attempting to reduce the amount of compensation.
Even earlier, ORDA also lost a court case to journalist Dmitry Shishkin, who accused the publication of plagiarism. Several years ago, the founder of the FBRK, Kirill Pavlov, also exposed ORDA for plagiarism.