Kazakhstan jails ex-minister for embezzling US$3m

ASTANA, Kazakhstan: A US-educated former Kazakh economy minister once viewed as leading a crop of young modernisers in the oil-rich country was convicted Wednesday of corruption charges and handed a 10-year prison sentence.
Scores of spectators packed out a small courthouse in the Kazakh capital Astana to see Kuandyk Bishimbayev, 37, found guilty of embezzling some US$3 million (RM11.71 million) from a state holding company in a trial that generated major public interest.
Bishimbayev greeted the verdict in silence, while several of his relatives broke down in tears.
He denied wrongdoing at the helm of a state-owned holding in charge of innovation and modernization projects, the position he held in 2013-2016 before becoming economy minister.
US-educated Bishimbayev was viewed by many as a prodigy and appeared destined for a long and successful career in the Central Asian country's government before his brief tenure as Kazakhstan's economy minister was suddenly cut short in December 2016.
He was arrested on corruption charges the following month.
Authorities say some US$3 million was embezzled form the company in total, with Bishimbayev reportedly stealing some US$2 million.
Bishimbayev was a prominent graduate of the much-vaunted government programme that saw talented citizens funded to study at some of the world's most prestigious universities.
He rose to the rank of deputy trade minister by the time he was 26, the youngest person to take a position of that rank at the time.
The programme was created with approval from Kazakhstan's long-ruling 77-year-old strongman Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1993 in order to replenish a bureaucracy dominated by Communist-era apparatchiks with modernisers.
Last month Nazarbayev said he "regretted" the money invested in Bishimbayev via the state scholarship programme in comments seen as a prelude to a guilty verdict.
Kazakhstan placed 122nd out of 180 countries in Transparency International's 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index.
Critics say Nazarbayev's authoritarian government offers little space for political opposition and a free media. — AFP