ASTANA, October 3 (RAPSI) – The Kazakh government has paid out 3.5 millon tenge (approximately $23,000) to the families of border guards killed in a May 2012 massacre, RIA Novosti reported Thursday.

“The families of 13 border guards received compensation, with the exception of the relatives of Denis Ray. He has not been recognized as being dead,” the agency cited an unnamed press service representative of Kazakhstan’s Committee of National Security as having said. In the case of Rey, neither Kazakh nor foreign forensics were able to identify his remains.

The massacre took place at the Arkankergen border post in the Almaty Region near the Kazakh-Chinese border. After the border post went off air, a neighboring unit was sent to inspect the location. When they arrived, they found a burned down barrack with 14 dead inside. A hunter's body was found at a nearby house.

19-year-old Kazakh border guard Vladislav Chelakh, the sole survivor, was detained several days later.

He initially confessed to murdering his colleagues and the hunter, but later denied his testimony, claiming that he had confessed under pressure.
Chelakh was accused of murder; theft; illegally obtaining and distributing state secrets; embezzlement or extortion of weapons, ammo, and explosive devices; illegal acquisition, transfer, sale, storage, or possession of weapons and explosive devices; intentional destruction or damage to military equipment; desertion; and the violation of the inviolability of residential property.

In December 2012 Chelakh was found guilty of murdering 15 people at the border post and sentenced to life in prison at a maximum security penal colony.

A civil claim against Chelakh seeking up to 32 million tenge (over $218,000) in compensation was granted by court. He is to pay out almost $165,000 of this sum to the five families of those who were killed in the massacre. Another $53,000 should go to the military unit where Chelakh served.