ASTANA -- A prosecutor in Kazakhstan asked a court in Astana on April 25 to convict and sentence the wife of a jailed nephew of the Central Asian nation's former strongman President Nursultan Nazarbaev to eight years in prison on charges of corruption, organizing a felony, and abduction over the alleged illegal appropriation of shares and assets of a number of enterprises.
Gulmira Satybaldy was arrested along with her husband Qairat Satybaldy in March last year and tried separately. The probes launched against the couple are part of a series of investigations targeting relatives and allies of Nazarbaev.
Qairat Satybaldy was sentenced to six years in prison in September after a court in the Kazakh capital found him guilty of fraud and embezzlement.
Also on April 25, a court in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, sentenced the former chief of city's branch of the National Committee(KNB), Nurlan Mazhilov, to six years in prison on a charge of abuse of power during unprecedented anti-government protests that turned into deadly mass disorders in January last year.
A day earlier, a court in Astana handed former KNB chief Karim Masimov an 18-year prison term on charges of high treason, attempting to seize power by force, and abuse of office and of power.
Masimov's former deputies, Anuar Sadyqulov, Daulet Erghozhin, and Marat Osipov, were sentenced to 16, 15, and three years in prison, respectively, at the same trial.
After the mass protests in early January 2022, the Kazakh regime began to quietly target Nazarbaev, his family, and other allies -- many of whom held powerful or influential posts in government, security agencies, and profitable energy companies.
President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, whom Nazarbaev hand-picked as his successor after stepping down in 2019, started distancing himself from the former leader after the January unrest, which was fueled by the Kazakhs’ pent up frustration with cronyism and corruption.
Toqaev stripped Nazarbaev of the sweeping powers he had retained as the head of the Security Council after resigning.
Just days after the protests, two of Nazarbaev’s sons-in-law were pushed out of top jobs at two major oil and gas companies.
Another son-in-law, Timur Kulibaev, resigned as chairman of the country’s main business lobby group, while in late February, Nazarbaev's eldest daughter, Darigha, was apparently forced to give up her parliamentary seat.
