A high-profile murder trial of a former government minister in Kazakhstan was watched by millions on television and has highlighted the country’s problem of domestic violence.
In a landmark ruling, a once-powerful politician was held accountable for the murder of his wife and a new law was enacted.
The question now arose as to whether there could be justice for other victims.
WARNING: This article contains details of violence against women
The facts, as presented in court, were terrifying.
The country’s former finance minister beat Saltanat Nukenova to death in November 2023 in an attack that was partly recorded by security cameras.
On the day of the murder, shortly after 7:15 a.m. local time, footage from a restaurant in the Kazakh capital Astana captured Kuandyk Bishimbayev punching and kicking Saltanat, and dragging her by her hair.
What exactly happened during the next 12 hours is unclear.
Some of it was captured on the former minister’s own mobile phone: images shown to the court, but not to the public.
Audio captures Bishimbayev insulting Saltanat and questioning her about another man.
The court heard that Bishimbayev called a psychic several times while his wife lay unconscious in the restaurant’s VIP room, where there were no cameras.
Finally, shortly before 8:00 p.m., an ambulance was called. The woman was already dead and, according to the autopsy, had probably been dead for six to eight hours.
The forensic examination, detailed before the court, He noted that Saltanat suffered a brain injury from external bruises, abrasions and wounds.
There was a build-up of 230 millilitres of blood between the skull and the surface of the brain. There were signs of strangulation.
Bishimbayev’s relative, Bakhytzhan Baizhanov, director of the complex where the restaurant was located, was sentenced to four years in prison for concealing a crime.
He claimed during the trial that Bishimbayev asked him to delete the footage from the surveillance cameras.
On May 13, the Astana Supreme Court sentenced 44-year-old Kuandyk Bishimbayev to 24 years in prison for the murder of 31-year-old Saltanat Nukenova.
But In Kazakhstan, where hundreds of women are killed each year by their partners, it was not easy to obtain a conviction.
The perpetrators are brought to justice in only one in four cases of domestic violence in the country, the UN estimates.
Many women are too scared to file a complaint.
As Saltanat’s brother says, Kazakh women “They have been screaming before, but they have never been heard.”
Until now.
Saltanat’s childhood was spent in the northeastern city of Pavlodar, near Kazakhstan’s border with Russia.
After finishing school, he moved to the former capital, Almaty, where he lived for a short period with his only older brother, Aitbek Amangeldy.
“That time was precious to our relationship,” Aitbek says, detailing how he and his sister developed a close relationship into adulthood.
Saltanat Nukenova was wearing less than a year married to Kuandyk Bishimbayev when he killed her.
He was arrested in 2017 on bribery charges and eventually sentenced to 10 years, after spending less than three years behind bars.
At the time, Saltanat was working as an astrologer, a passion that began after her godmother gave her a book when she was nine, her brother says.
“She helped women who were in all kinds of difficult situations, whether it was in family relationships, marriage or with children,” she explained, recalling her cheerful, smiling sister and her dreams of opening an astrology school.
“Long and obsessive” courtship
In his testimony, Aitbek said that Bishimbayev tried to arrange a meeting with Saltanat, who initially refused the request.
He said a “long and obsessive courtship” followed and Bishimbayev managed to obtain Saltanat’s phone number.
Aitbek says her sister showed her messages in which Bishimbayev had asked to meet her and encouraged her not to believe everything that had been written and said about him.
A few months after that meeting they got married. And it wasn’t long before the problems began.
Saltanat shared photos of bruises with her brother and tried to leave her husband on several occasions.
She said Bishimbayev was trying to isolate her after Saltanat left the job she loved, as he “forbade” her to work.
As the judge told the court when sentencing Bishimbayev, it was a murder of particular cruelty.
Yet Bishimbayev had tried to downplay it. He admitted causing bodily harm to Saltanat leading to her death, but strongly denied it was intentional.
He asked the jury to be “objective and fair.”
Meanwhile, Aitbek was asked by her lawyer whether her sister Saltanat preferred “men to dominate” in relationships or whether she dominated.
“Are you serious?” he replied.
A brave act
The tone of the questioning does not surprise Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
“The survivor can be blamed for behaving in some way that ‘provokes’ the abuser; she can be blamed for destroying the family, for disrespecting her husband or her parents and in-laws,” she told the BBC.
“It takes courage to report domestic violence, and there are many reasons to believe that it is highly underreported.”
The United Nations estimates that around 400 Kazakh women die each year from domestic violence. By comparison, 70 women were killed in England and Wales (with a population three times larger) in the year to March 2023.
Calls to crisis centres for victims of domestic violence increased by 141.8% between 2018 and 2022, according to Kazakhstan’s Interior Ministry.
Still, Krivosheev says, “There is still a high level of tolerance for domestic violence, but it is decreasing.”
But as details of Saltanat’s final hours were exposed to the nation via a live broadcast from the courtroom, pressure mounted on the government to act.
Social media users took to platforms like TikTok to discuss the case. And a petition, signed by more than 150,000 people, called for reform of the law on domestic violence.
On April 15, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev enacted a law that toughened the punishment for domestic violence, after being decriminalized in 2017.
The new “Saltanat law” classifies it as a criminal offence; previously it was considered a civil offence. Now cases can also be opened without the victim filing a complaint.
But the reality is that legislation still falls far short of what is needed, says Dinara Smailova, who founded the NeMolchiKZ Foundation, which helps victims of domestic violence and rape.
For starters, “the injury is considered minor” if a woman does not stay in hospital for at least 21 days. “Fractures, a broken nose or jaw are considered minor health injuries.”
Smailova established her foundation after seeing the response when she posted on social media in 2016 about surviving gang rape and sexual violence in her youth.
She says that in just a few days she received “a hundred messages from women talking about the violence they suffered, how they were forbidden to speak and how men went unpunished.”
His foundation publishes “scandalous cases of violence for eight years,” without a response from the government, he added.
She no longer lives in Kazakhstan, where authorities have placed her on a wanted list for spreading false information, violating privacy and committing fraud.
Ironically, it is stories like these that are said to have inspired Saltanat’s compassion, his brother notes.
“She was always fighting for justice,” Aitbek says. “No matter in terms of what… she had a strong sense of justice. Whenever she saw that someone was hurt and needed protection, she was always there” for people.
And he also believes the law doesn’t go far enough – yet. But it’s a start, showing people that even the most powerful must be held accountable.
This trial will show people that “in Kazakhstan, the law is the same for everyone and everyone is equal before the law in a trial,” he said.
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