The head of the armed forces in Kazakhstan, Bakhyzhan Yertayev, has been found not guilty of illegally selling forty MiG fighter jets to North Korea.

His co-defendant, a businessman, Aleksander Petrenko, was found guilty on smuggling charges, but was immediately amnestied.

The aircraft were part of the military arsenal Kazakhstan inherited from the former Soviet Union.

The Kazakh government denied any knowledge of the deal.

The scandal threatened Kazakhstan's relations with two of its biggest foreign investors, the United States and South Korea.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service