The former chief of police of Kazakhstan’s southern region of Almaty, Serik Kudebaev, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in April in a case related to the deadly mass unrest that rocked the nation in January last year, has been handed an additional six-month prison term for illegal border crossing.
The Kegen district court ruled on July 18 that part of Kudebaev's new six-month prison term will be served concurrently with his original prison term, meaning his sentence will total 10 years and three months.
Kudebaev was arrested in May 2022 and later released but ordered not to leave Almaty as investigations into the case against him were under way.
Kazakh authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Kudebaev after he failed to show up at his trial in March.
Almaty regional police said then that Kudebaev might have illegally crossed the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border late that month and left Kyrgyzstan for Turkey.
In late April, the Kazakh Prosecutor-General's Office said Kudebaev had been apprehended in Turkey and extradited to Kazakhstan.
Kudebaev is one of dozens of former law enforcement officials and individuals close to former President Nursultan Nazarbaev to face various charges following January 2022 antigovernment protests that were violently dispersed, leaving at least 238 people dead.
President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has taken a series of moves since the unrest to push Nazarbaev, who ruled the tightly controlled former Soviet republic with an iron fist for almost three decades, further into the background following his resignation in 2019.
Though he officially stepped down as president, Nazarbaev retained sweeping powers as head of the country's powerful Security Council. He also enjoyed substantial powers by holding the title of elbasy -- the leader of the nation.
In the wake of the deadly unrest last year, Toqaev stripped Nazarbaev of his Security Council role, taking it over himself. Since then, several of Nazarbaev’s relatives and allies have been pushed out of their positions or resigned. Some relatives faced criminal charges.
In mid-February, Toqaev signed a law that canceled Nazarbaev's elbasy title.