ASTANA -- A man was sentenced to seven years in prison in a high-profile trial related to the death of a 4-year-old girl during deadly unrest in Kazakhstan in January 2022.
The military court in Astana on March 28 annulled serviceman Arman Zhuman's acquittal from November and sentenced him after finding him guilty of abuse of power.
Aikorkem Meldekhan was shot dead in the Central Asian nation's largest city, Almaty, by what the court concluded was military personnel, when she and other members of her family were in a car on their way to a grocery store on January 7, 2022.
The vehicle was sprayed with at least 20 bullets, also wounding Aikorkem's 15-year-old sister.
Zhuman's lawyer, Oksana Musokhranova, said the court's decision will be appealed.
Aikorkem's father, Aidos Meldekhan, said he is not satisfied with the court's decision, insisting that the charge should have been changed from abuse of power to murder of a minor and attempted murder.
At least 238 people are believed to have been killed by Kazakh security forces during a brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters in January 2022.
With the country in the throes of unrest, President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev gave police and military troops the controversial order to "shoot to kill without warning." He justified the move by saying "20,000 extremists trained in foreign terrorist camps" had seized Almaty airport and other buildings.
No evidence of foreign-trained terrorists was ever presented.
The order sparked an outcry and Aikorkem's picture turned into an image symbolizing the victims of the crackdown, many of whom were killed -- some under torture -- by police, security forces and military personnel, including troops of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, whom Toqaev invited into the country "to restore law and order."