Karim Qazhymqanuly Massimov (, ; born 15 June 1965) is a politician who served as a Prime Minister of Kazakhstan from 10 January 2007 to 24 September 2012 and again from 2 April 2014 to 8 September 2016. Massimov served as Deputy Prime Minister from 19 January 2006 to 9 January 2007 and as Minister of Economy and Budget Planning, Minister of Transport and Communications in 2001. President Nursultan Nazarbayev nominated Massimov to succeed Daniyal Akhmetov as Prime Minister on 9 January 2007. The Nur Otan party endorsed Massimov's candidacy and Parliament confirmed the nomination on 10 January. On 24 September 2012, Massimov's Premiership ended when President Nazarbayev dismissed him as from the position, appointing him chief of staff of the presidential office in order to readjust the power balance between various factions within the government. He was the head of Kazakhstan's National Security Committee until he was dismissed by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on 5 January 2022 and shortly after detained on suspicion of alleged treason. Since 6 January, Massimov has been a political prisoner, awaiting the result of a trial which has been classified as 'top secret', lacking any form of independent or public scrutiny. Early life and career Karim Massimov was born to a Muslim family of Tajik and Uyghur roots, in the city of Tselinograd (now Astana, Kazakhstan). He is the son of Eleanor Azhybekova and Qazhymqan Massimov. His father held various managerial positions such as being the director of the Burundai Production Association of Wall Materials, deputy chief of the Glavtopsnab under the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR, director of the Massimov Health Center LLP. In addition, he was president organizations of the National Agro-Industrial Chamber of Kazakhstan and the Kazakhstan Yoga Association. Education In 1982, Massimov graduated from the Republican Physics and Mathematics Boarding School in Alma-Ata. From 1985 to 1988, he studied at the People's Friendship University of Russia where he learned Arabic, then the Alma-Ata Institute of National Economy. From 1988 to 1989, Massimov studied Chinese at the Beijing Institute of Language, taught at the Wuhan University School of Law from 1989 to 1991, and then Columbia University in New York City. In 1998, he graduated from the graduate school of the Kazakh State Academy of Management. In 1999, Massimov earned a doctoral degree from the Moscow State University of Technologies and Management named after K.G. Razumovskiy. That same year, he