The former head of the Shymkent city finance department has been sentenced to three years in prison after a court found him guilty of abuse of office in rare conviction for corruption in Kazakhstan.
Kenzhebek Zhanbosynov was arrested immediately after the Karatau District Court handed down its ruling on May 5. He was also banned for life from holding public office.
The court said that Zhanbosynov, 49, as the head of the city finance department and a member of the board of directors of the Shymkent Social and Entrepreneurial Corporation, oversaw the sale of apartments at below-market rates, "causing significant damage" to the state.
Zhanbosynov's lawyers rejected the verdict and said that they would appeal it as the court failed to prove their client's actions caused serious material damage to the state or society.
Kazakhstan has been plagued for years by rampant corruption, placing 102nd out of 180 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index in 2021.
In January, protests that started over a fuel-price hike spread across Kazakhstan because of discontent over cronyism and corruption.
Much of the anger in the streets was directed at former President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who ruled the Central Asian state from 1989 to March 2019, when he handed power to Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev.
Since the protests, Toqaev has swept out many seen as loyal to Nazarbaev, as well as those who were seen as failing to contain the deadly violence.
