Ousted Kyrgyz president charged with murder

Kyrgyzstan's new authorities have charged the country's former president with mass murder in the deaths of scores of antigovernment protesters earlier this month, an official in the provisional government said Tuesday. The police and presidential guards opened fire on thousands of demonstrators on April 7, killing at least 85 people. They failed, however, to stop the protesters, who commandeered weapons and an armored personnel carrier and overran the government. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the former president, was forced to flee the country, and is currently in Belarus, where the president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has guaranteed his security. The interim government has struggled to return order to Kyrgyzstan, an impoverished Central Asian nation that hosts a United States air base that serves as a transit hub for troops and equipment for the NATO mission in Afghanistan. The new government has made prosecuting Mr. Bakiyev a priority, and has vowed to seek his extradition from Belarus.