Kazakhstan: court acquitted former Vice Minister
The former Vice Minister of Energy of Kazakhstan, Anatoly Shkarupa, was acquitted by the court decision. Earlier, he was accused together with Chairman of the Board of the joint-stock company “Housing and Utilities Development Fund”, Kaysar Baidaly, and the Director of ENERCO, Erlan Nabiev, of budget funds’ embezzlement in the amount of more than a million US dollars.
As ACCA already reported, Shkarupa, Baidaly and Nabiev were arrested in November 2018 on suspicion of embezzling budget funds allocated in 2015 to the Housing and Utilities Development Fund for the purchase and installation of heating meters in the city of Saran (Karaganda region).
However, as the Prosecutor General’s Office found out, at that time there was no heating main and a central boiler house in Saran. Anatoly Shkarupa, who served as mayor of Saran from 2014 to 2017, was well aware of this. Nevertheless, according to the investigation, three defendants purchased heat meters and installed them in empty walls, reporting to the government for the use of the funds. The trial of the suspects began on January 8 last year.
The case of the former Vice Minister was accompanied by various scandals. So, in November 2019, one of the suspects, Erlan Nabiev, accused the head of the fourth Service of the Prosecutor General’s Office (Service of special prosecutors), Olesya Keksel, and a member of the investigative group of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Bauyrzhan Gabbasov, of torture. According to Nabiev, Keksel and Gabbasov used psychological measures against him (threats), didn’t allow him to eat and drink (despite the fact that he is diabetic), demanding to criminate himself and other defendants in this case.
However, according to Nabiev’s statement, the case was subsequently dropped due to the absence of criminal event.
It’s worth recalling that at the first court session in his case, Anatoly Shkarupa challenged the judge Zhanat Yegemberdieva due to lack of confidence.
“I was not given the opportunity to get acquainted with the case materials and build my own line of defense. In addition, you have read to me the rights of the convicted person without having considered the case yet. You cannot take part in the consideration of the case,” the defendant explained.
However, the representatives of the Prosecutor’s Office expressed their disagreement with this petition, and the judge Yegemberdieva continued to consider this high-profile case. It was she, who acquitted the former Vice Minister and two other defendants in this case.
According to Yegemberdieva, the court concluded that the actions of the defendants lacked a criminal offense. The judge also noted that all three, now former defendants, have the right to compensation for the harm caused to them and to rehabilitation.
