By ASTANA. May 4 (Interfax) – A court in Astana found Gulmira Satybaldy, former wife of ex-Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s nephew, guilty of unsanctioned action and abduction and sentenced her to seven years of incarceration on Thursday.
“Find Gulmira Satybaldy guilty and sentence her to seven years of imprisonment without confiscation of assets. Order that she serve time in a medium-security penitentiary,” Presiding Judge Kemenger Imashev said, pronouncing the sentence.
The court also ordered a motion to the head of state for depriving Satybaldy of a state award, the Kurmet Order.
Another defendant, Madi Batyrshayev, was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in a penitentiary without confiscation of assets. The third accomplice, Rashid Utebekov, was sentenced to five years of imprisonment without confiscation of assets.
Gulmira Satybaldy’s trial began at a court in Baikonur District on March 14, 2023.
She was charged with such criminal offenses as an unsanctioned action conspiracy that caused substantial damage to rights or legitimate interests of citizens or entities and was conducted by violence or with a threat to use violence and an abduction conspiracy for reasons of greed.
Satybaldy’s driver Batyrshayev and abduction perpetrator Utebekov were the other defendants in the dock.
The victims are businessman Tursen Alaguzov and former owner of LLC Maxi Bottlers Aygul Mekesheva.
Satybaldy was detained on March 16, 2022, and put in a pretrial detention facility in Astana. The anti-corruption agency said on the next day that she and a number of other persons were the subject of an investigation into a hostile takeover of a business. Later in March, the Shymkent anti-corruption agency said it was holding an inquiry into actions of officials from the Shymkent Passenger Transport and Roads Department and the administration of LLC Aria Zhana Astana, including Gulmira Satybaldy, on counts of major embezzlement of public funds (747 million tenge) in 2021. The funds were paid for uncompleted construction and installation work. The agency’s press service said in April that Satybaldy was also suspected of embezzling funds assigned for renovating the facilities of University Games 2017.
She is the former spouse of Kairat Satybaldy, a nephew of the first Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and one of the most influential businessmen in Kazakhstan, according to Forbes Kazakhstan.
Kairat Satybaldy was detained last March on suspicion of abuse of office and massive embezzlement of the telecoms operator Kazakhtelecom’s funds.
Last September, a court in Astana found Kairat Satybaldy guilty of embezzlement and sentenced him to six years in a general penitentiary with confiscation of assets and deprivation of the right to be a public official for ten years.
