Yet another legal precedent has been created in Kazakhstan: an entrepreneur (who is also a member of an organized crime group) accused of oil stealing has been sentenced to a greater term in imprisonment than the group’s leader who, additionally, has been found guilty of several other serious crimes. As usual, it all boils down to politics.
On December 12, 2018, the Actobe Regional Inter-District Criminal Court sentenced co-owner of Aktobe Refinery LLP Almaz Kuzhagaliyev to 19 years of imprisonment at a maximum-security facility.
As we had predicted, Kuzhagaliyev was going to get no less than 16-year term. First, because, the judge, in such cases, usually sheds a couple of years off the term that the state prosecutor is asking for. Second, there had been enough people trying to better Kuzhagaliyev’s lot, and not empty-handedly.
However, Almaz Kuzhagaliyev got the maximal 19 years of imprisonment. Our insiders explain this by the fact that, first he had never acknowledged his guilt, second, had dared to make such a resonant last speech that he shocked not only the siloviks and Akorda but his own attorneys that had prepared a completely different text and hoped that their client would get off with a 11-12-year term.
As a result, a legal precedent has been created in Kazakhstan: an entrepreneur (who is also a member of an organized crime group) accused of oil stealing has been sentenced to a greater term than the group’s leader who, apart from oil stealing, has also been found guilty of corporate raiding, blackmail, illegal purchasing and possession of weapons.
We believe the criminal case against Almaz Kuzhagaliyev and the extreme sentencing possess a clearly targeted and politicized nature; the fact that can be used by the opponents of the Kazakh authorities to undermine the Kazakh legal system and practices both inside the country and abroad.
By the looks of it, however, those in Akorda who moderate the domestic political process in the country have taken this step quite deliberately since it allows them to achieve a very important goal of quieting down the two potentially dangerous domestic political players: the Atyrau regional elite and Imangali Tasmagambetov personally.
With that, we should note that Almaz Kuzhagaliev had unwittingly played into the hands of those who sent him to prison by calling the current Ambassador to Russia and his relatives responsible for his misfortunes.
According to the information received from our insiders, despite the fact that, as the Ambassador to Russia, Imangali Tasmagambetov has been living in Moscow for two years and, therefore, has lost the right to run for Presidency, he is still being suspected of wanting to become Nursultan Nazarbayev’s successor.
The verdict when one co-owner and top-manager of Akrobe Refinery LLP is found guilty of an extremely grievous crime allows Akorda to “hang up” the second co-owner and top-manager of the company. And, since the latter is Imangali Tasmagambetov’s nephew, it allows Akorda to “hang up” Tasmagambetov himself.
What is important to note is that the “hanging up” is designed not so much for the next Presidential elections (the early ones in 2019 or the scheduled ones in 2020) as for the time to follow when Nursultan Nazarbayev either weakens physically and politically to the point of not being able to control the elite or becomes a part of history.
At the moment, we cannot name those from the President’s immediate circle who will benefit from the “hanging up” of Imangali Tasmagambetov and the Atyrau (or perhaps the entire Western Kazakh) ruling elite during the transition period and who has played the crucial part in this domestic political special op performed under the guise of prosecuting the
Four Brothers” organized crime group. Basically, it can be any of Nazarbayev’s current allies and relatives – from his eldest daughter Dariga Nazarbayeva and son-in-law Timur Kulibayev to the NSC Chief Karim Masimov and his First Deputy Samat Abish.
