ASTANA – Almaty court delivered its final verdict on Jan. 27 in the case of the January 2022 unrest, sentencing 45 defendants involved in the violent protests, reported Kazinform.
Defendants in January events trial receive sentences, with Arman Zhumageldiev facing 20 years. Photo credit: Adobe Stock
Among those sentenced were Arman Zhumageldiev, known as Dikyi (Wild) Arman, given 20 years in prison, and former Almaty maslikhat (local representative body) deputy Kairat Kudaibergen, sentenced to eight years.
Ruslan Iskakov, former head of the National Security Committee’s fifth department, was given 15.6 years and a lifetime ban from holding civil service positions.
Former financial police agent Talgat Makhatov was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and journalist Berdakh Berdymuratov received a seven-year sentence.
The remaining 40 individuals on trial faced charges ranging from abuse of power to participation in mass riots and received sentences ranging from one to 15 years.
The January events, also known as Qandy Qantar (bloody January), began on Jan. 2, 2022, in the small town of Zhanaozen in the oil-rich Mangystau Region in western Kazakhstan. People took to the streets over a sharp increase in the price of liquefied gas from 60 tenge (US$0.12) to 120 tenge (US$0.23) a liter, which the government had to address later.
However, protests spread to other cities, including Almaty, the nation’s largest city and former capital. According to Kazakh Prosecutor General Berik Asylov, peaceful protests were “taken over by organized criminal groups” in what the country’s leadership called an “attempted coup d’etat.” He said that most of the participants were under 30 years of age.
