ASTANA -- Kazakh tycoon Qairat Boranbaev, whose daughter is the widow of a grandson of former President Nursultan Nazarbaev, has been released from custody after his prison term was replaced with a parole-like sentence.
Kazakhstan's state penitentiary committee confirmed media reports to RFE/RL, saying that Boranbaev was released from prison on November 6.
In September, a court in Astana sentenced Boranbaev to six years in prison after a retrial procedure.
Six months earlier, Boranbaev and his two co-defendants had been sentenced to eight years in prison each on embezzlement charges, which the trio rejected at the time.
In June, a court in Astana canceled the sentences, citing the absence of key documents that the charges against the three men were based on.
On August 22, Boranbaev's lawyer, Daniyar Qanafin, stated at a new hearing of the case in Astana that his client had changed his plea and accepted that he embezzled 14.6 billion tenges (more than $32 million), which he had returned to the State Treasury.
Qanafin also announced that his client was ready to make a deal with investigators and prosecutors.
Boranbaev's daughter, Alima Boranbaeva, and Nazarbaev's grandson, Aisultan Nazarbaev, married in 2013. In September 2020, Aisultan Nazarbaev, who reportedly suffered from drug addiction and had run-ins with the law in the United Kingdom, died in London at the age of 29.
Boranbaev, 56, was arrested following unprecedented anti-government protests in early January last year, after which the Kazakh regime began to quietly target Nazarbaev, his family, and other allies -- many of whom held powerful or influential posts in government, security agencies, and profitable energy companies.
Kazakh media reports said over the weekend, that Nazarbaev's once-powerful younger brother Bolat Nazarbaev, 70, was rushed to hospital with symptoms consistent with having a heart attack.
