After retiring from the sport, he ran to become the head of the Kyrgyz Olympic Committee, recently vacated after the murder of Bayaman Erkinbayev[1] the previous September.
[2] Aldoyar Ismankulov, the National Security Service chief for organized crime, was arrested for the murder within a few weeks, then released and eventually acquitted.
But finally, on 16 April, it was announced that Kuban Jodoshev, who was allegedly responsible for seven murders including Sanatbayev's, was killed during a special police operation in Bishkek.
[4] Sanatbayev had been outspoken in his criticism of fellow-candidate, Ryspek Akmatbaev, a former boxer, businessman, and head of the Kyrgyzstan Fencing Federation, who was at the time on trial for murder,[5] but was later acquitted.
Akmatbaev went on to run for parliament in April - he won the election but was not seated because of his alleged criminal ties - when, on 14 May, he was also murdered.