A court in the southern Kazakh city of Qyzylorda has sentenced the former wife of a convicted nephew of the Central Asian country's former authoritarian president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, to eight years in prison on charges of embezzlement and the illegal appropriation of shares and assets of several enterprises.
The Qyzylorda regional court, on June 30, also barred Gulmira Satybaldy from occupying CEO posts in commercial organizations for 10 years.
The court also ruled that Satybaldy will serve the term concurrently with a seven-year prison term she was handed in May on charges of abduction and actions aiding the commission of a crime.
Gulmira Satybaldy was arrested along with her ex-husband, Qairat Satybaldy, in March 2022. He was tried separately in September and sentenced to six years in prison after being found guilty of fraud and embezzlement.
The cases launched against the couple are part of a series of ongoing investigations targeting relatives and allies of Nazarbaev.
Last month, a court in the capital, Astana, handed former chief of the National Security Committee (KNB), Karim Masimov, known as a close ally of Nazarbaev for years, an 18-year prison term on charges of high treason, attempting to seize power by force, and abuse of office and 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.
Also in May, courts in Almaty sentenced, in two separate trials, the former chief of police of the Almaty region, General Serik Kudebaev, and the former chief of the city's branch of the KNB, Nurlan Mazhilov, to 10 and six years in prison respectively on charges of abuse of power during unprecedented anti-government protests that turned into deadly mass disorder in January 2022.
After the mass protests, the 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.