After a high-profile trial, former Economy Minister Kuandyk Bishimbayev was sentenced to 24 years in prison on Monday for the murder of his wife.
Bishimbayev was the country’s economy minister in 2016 and the trial was broadcast live and watched by millions of Kazakhs. There, among other things, a surveillance video from the restaurant, which the 44-year-old ex-minister owns together with his family, was played.
Called fortune teller and ate food
There, Bishimbayev was seen pulling his wife by the hair between several rooms while brutally beating her. In the end, she was left on the floor in the restaurant’s VIP room. There is no image material from there as a relative, who was also charged, made sure it was deleted, according to The Moscow Times.
The two then sat down to eat after Bishimbayev received reassuring news from a fortune teller: The wife would survive, was her verdict. When paramedics arrived twelve hours later, she was already dead.
400 femicides a year
The murder has shaken Kazakhstan – where violence against women is already severe. According to the UN, around 400 women in the country are estimated to be murdered by their partners every year. Tens of thousands have signed demands for stricter legislation regarding violence against women after the murder.
One in six women say they have been subjected to physical violence by a male partner, but domestic violence often goes unpunished.
Criticism has been leveled at the parliament in Astana for dragging out such legislation. But in April, the “Saltanat law” was hammered out, which toughens the punishment for violence in close relationships.