The Qonaev City Court in Kazakhstan's southeast said on August 9 that businessman Muratkhan Toqmadi, who was sentenced in 2018 to a lengthy prison term for his alleged involvement in the killing of a banker, has been granted early release.
Kazakh media reports quoted sources on August 9 as saying that Toqmadi was expected to be released on August 10 -- the day a court decision made in late July will come into force.
The announcement came almost 2 1/2 years after Toqmadi called on President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev to review his case after he retracted his testimony against Mukhtar Ablyazov, a fugitive outspoken critic of Kazakhstan's government and former banker.
In a letter made public in March 2022, Toqmadi said he confessed to the killing of Erzhan Tatishev on a hunting trip in 2004 and falsely testified in 2018 that he killed Tatishev at the behest of Ablyazov because he was tortured and faced psychological pressure imposed on him by the National Security Committee.
Tatishev at the time was the head of TuranAlem bank, which was later renamed BTA. After Tatishev's death, which was ruled an accident at the time, Ablyazov became the bank's chief. He has been living abroad since 2009.
It remains unclear if Toqmadi was granted an early release because he had served a significant part of his term and used his right to apply for early release or because his case was revised.
Toqmadi’s letter to Toqaev came after deadly unrest in January that resulted in the removal of former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev and his clan from the political scene.
In February 2018, Toqmadi, who was initially sentenced in 2017 to three years in prison for extortion and illegal firearms possession, entered a guilty plea at the murder trial, which ended with him being sentenced to 10 1/2 years in prison.
In November that year, Ablyazov was tried in absentia, convicted of murder based on Toqmadi's testimony, and sentenced to life in prison.
In a separate trial in absentia that ended in 2017, Ablyazov was convicted of embezzlement, abuse of office, and organizing a criminal group and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Ablyazov has denied all the charges, saying they are politically motivated.