Kazakhstan's ex-culture minister Arystanbek Mukhamediuly sentenced to 11 years
The Kazakh capital’s Specialized City Court has sentenced former culture and sport minister of Kazakhstan Arystanbek Mukhamediuly to 11 years in jail, Kazinform News Agency correspondent reports.
According to the Court’s statement, on February 13, 2024, Mukhamediuly was found guilty of attempted major bribe giving. According to the Court’s ruling, the former culture and sport minister was sentenced to 11 years and deprived of the right to take civil service posts for life.
Co-defendant Naliya Isskakova was given six months in prison for mediation in bribery and banned for life to occupy civil service posts and Mustakhim Tuleev received six years and eight months in prison after found guilty of fraud in especially large size and was banned from advocate practice for 10 years.
Mukhamediuly was accused of two crimes under section 3 of Article 28 (Crime organization) and subsection 4 of section 4 of the Article (Misappropriation or embezzlement of the property entrusted to the convicted person in especially large size).
The former Kazakh minister was also charged under subsection 3 of section four of Article 361 (Abuse of power by the person in the responsible state position leading to serious consequences), section 3 of Article 24 (Attempted crime), section 1 of Article 249 (Raider takeover), and Article 250 (Abuse of power).
Abai Satybaldin, Leonid Kochetov, Azamat Koshenov, Aiym Sadvokassova, and Gulzat Zhuaspayeva also appeared at the court as defendants.
According to the investigation, in 2019, Mukhamediuly lent money in the amount of 2.5 billion tenge secured by the one of the buildings of Diplomat Hotel to the entrepreneur to whom the hotel belonged. The ex-minster of culture received a 71% share of the LLP owing the hotel. According to the charges, Mukhamediuly attempted to take over the rest 29% of the hotel through different ways, which were later characterized as attempts of hostile takeover.
To note, in June last year, the former director of the National Museum Arystanbek Mukhamediuly was sentenced to eight years in jail for stealing 221 million tenge of the budet money.
