The term of Bakhyt Ibragim’s (Kazakhstan Prime Minister’s son-in-law’s) arrest ends in four days, on September 1, 2018. He was detained in Germany on April 23 by request of Kazakhstan Public Prosecution Office. Note that the Kazakhstan media-resources learned about this development only on May 15. And, as early as on June 4, he was already extradited to Kazakhstan and put into the Astana pretrial detention center from where he was moved to the same kind of facility in Almaty.
Judging by the fact that only a month and a half had passed between Bakhyt Ibragim’s detention by the German authorities and his extradition to Kazakhstan, he either agreed to return to the country or chose not to appeal the German authorities’ decision. Indirectly, this shows his readiness to cooperate with the investigation.
Let us recall that Ibragim is suspected of committing a crime covered in Part 4, Clause 2, Article 190 of the Kazakhstan Criminal Code called “Serious Fraud”. The crime was supposed to have been committed by a group of people that included former Kazakhstan banker Zhimart Ertayev.
The total sum of the funds embezzled during the period from 2013 to 2016 allegedly constitutes 50 bln tenge and $83 mln.
The peculiarity of Ibragim’s case lies in its evident “unpopularity” in the Kazakhstan media space. Most local media-resources prefer not to cover the topic at all as had been noted in the Radio Azattyk publication “Bakhyt Ibragim. A Problem with Many Unknowns”.
It looks like that reason for that lies in the hidden pressure exerted by Prime Minister Bakhytzhan Saginayev’s people or in the Kazakhstan media bosses’ unwillingness to come into conflict with such an influential figure. Perhaps both factors are at play here.
Therefore, we allow for the possibility that Bakhyt Sagintayev’s arrest, despite the hyper-scandalous nature of the Bank RBK embezzlement case, will not be elongated by the Medeuskiy District Court. In other words, on September 2, 2018, the Prime Minister’s son-in-law might perhaps be placed under house arrest or even released from custody on condition not to leave town.
The odds of that happening are rather high. Because, a little earlier, a figurant of another criminal case who was connected to the Prime Minister’s close relative got off very lightly for committing a serious corruption crime. We are talking about former Vice-President of Kedentrans JSC Galym Mukanov.
For those who have already forgotten that story, Galym Mukanov was detained on June 6, 2018, by the National Agency for Civic Service Affairs and Anti-Corruption. The public learned about this on June 11 when he was arrested by the court. However, as early as on July 19, the court already imposed fines on Mukanov and his two accomplices. Note that the size of the fines turned out to be minimal: the ratio between the fine (9.2 mln tenge) and the size of the bribe (7.2 mln tenge) equals to only 1.3 times even though, according to the current legislature, this ratio could reach up to 80 times.
The fact that Bakytzhan Sagintayev’s nephew Alimzhan Abdirov was the President of Kedentrans JSC had, in our opinion, played the crucial role in the matter. Quite possibly Galym Mukanov could have testified against him, so his case was investigated within a shortest possible time and submitted to the court that imposed an abnormally light sentence.
This is how things are done in Kazakhstan when one finds it necessary to, first, convince (force) the accused to keep silent re the participation in their crimes of the persons in power or those close to it and, second, to demonstrate their influence and capabilities to the opponents and the other elite groups.
