Courts in Almaty have so far sentenced 80 people to terms ranging from two to five and a half years of restricted freedom in cases related to the January events in Kazakhstan. About it writes Kazakh service of Radio Liberty with reference to the press service of the city court.
All of them were convicted under article “Theft”.
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According to the Almaty court, sentences were handed down on March 25 to five defendants. Three were convicted under article “Theft”. One of them was sentenced to three years in prison, two more to two years. Two people were convicted on charges of “illegal acquisition, transfer, sale, storage, transportation or carrying of weapons and ammunition.” One was sentenced to three years in prison, the other to one year in prison.
“All those who pleaded guilty, repented of their deed, reconciled or compensated for damage with goods in unopened packaging or in monetary terms, were sentenced to restriction of freedom. circumstances,” the press service of the Almaty City Court said.
The spokesman also said that the criminal cases against two people under the article “Theft” ended with the reconciliation of the parties. In addition, one person was assigned 40 hours of community service on charges of “petty theft.” With regard to eight people, the criminal cases were returned to the prosecutors.
As of March 25, according to the press service, the courts in Almaty considered 65 criminal cases on the January events against 98 people. There are currently 61 cases pending against 92 people. Most of the cases came under articles of “theft” and “theft of weapons ammunition,” the spokesman said.
In total, Almaty courts received 126 criminal cases against 190 persons. To this day, according to the press service of the court, no criminal cases under articles on “mass riots” and “acts of terrorism” have been received by the courts of Almaty.
On February 21, it became known that a court in Almaty sentenced two residents of the Almaty region to five years in prison each on charges of “theft or extortion of weapons.” Their sentences were handed down a month and a half after the January events.
According to official figures, 238 people died in the January events. The list of the dead was not released by the authorities. The authorities laid responsibility for their deaths on “international gangs of terrorists” trained abroad, declaring an attempted coup d’état.
During and after the January events, thousands of people were detained, hundreds were placed in custody as suspects of terrorism, riots, theft of weapons and other crimes. Many of those arrested said they were tortured in custody. On March 14, the anti-corruption service reported that it was investigating 234 criminal cases on allegations of torture. By that day, eight people had died in temporary detention centers after being detained in connection with the January events.
The authorities rejected the calls of human rights activists to conduct an international investigation into the January events.
The international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) has repeatedly called on the Kazakh authorities to allow international experts to investigate the January events and provide them with access to all available information.
