A top Kyrgyz lawmaker and key figure in this ex-Soviet state's popular revolution in March, Bayaman Erkinbayev, was shot dead outside his house late Wednesday in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, the country's interior minister said.
"When the deputy came out of his car in front of his house he was shot at from behind some bushes. He died from his injuries in intensive care at the national hospital," Interior Minister Murat Sutalinov told an emergency session of parliament on Thursday.
Erkinbayev, a former martial arts champion and one of the richest men in this Central Asian nation, was an influential businessman who owned factories, hotels and entertainment complexes in the south of the country.