A court in Kazakhstan has rejected an appeal filed by a cousin of the jailed former head of Kazakhstan's Committee of National Security (KNB) against his conviction and 10-year prison term on charges of bribery and embezzlement.
Nurlan Masimov, 49, a cousin of former KNB chief Karim Masimov, served as police chief of the Pavlodar region in northern Kazakhstan before deadly anti-government protests in January last year that left at least 238 people dead, including 19 law enforcement officers.
The court ruling on December 1 upheld the verdict against Nurlan Masimov and his 10-year sentence. It also upheld the verdict and eight-year sentence handed to co-defendant Damir Sirazidimov, his former deputy, on bribery charges.
But the court cut by two years the seven-year prison term handed to Masimov's other co-defendant, businessman Yevgeny Yevkovich, on a charge of embezzlement.
Kazakh authorities said in July last year that Nurlan Masimov was detained while trying to cross the border into Russia using forged documents.
His cousin, Karim Masimov, a close ally of former President Nursultan Nazarbaev, is serving an 18-year prison sentence over his role in deadly events that followed unprecedented anti-government protests in the former Soviet republic in January 2022.
Karim Masimov's former deputies, Anuar Sadyqulov, Daulet Erghozhin, and Marat Osipov, were sentenced to 16, 15, and three years in prison respectively at the trial in April.
The 58-year-old Masimov was arrested along with Erghozhin and Sadyqulov days after the protests turned into deadly unrest. Osipov was arrested in February 2022.
The protests began in the southwestern town of Zhanaozen in January 2022 over a sudden fuel price hike. But the demonstrations quickly grew into broader unrest against corruption, political stagnation, and widespread injustice.
Much of the protesters' anger appeared directed at Nazarbaev, who ruled Kazakhstan from 1989 until March 2019, when he handed power to President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev. However, Nazarbaev was widely believed to remain in control behind the scenes.
The protests were violently dispersed by police and military personnel, including troops of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization whom Toqaev invited into the country claiming that "20,000 extremists who were trained in terrorist camps abroad" had attacked Almaty.
The authorities have provided no evidence proving Toqaev’s claim about foreign terrorists.
