Astana Businessman Faces Renewed Trial Despite Jury Acquittal

Astana businessman Timur Sadvakassov is again facing trial in Pavlodar on suspicion of fraud and incitement to bribery, although a jury had previously acquitted him and other defendants in the case “due to the absence of a criminal act,” Orda.kz reports.

Timur’s wife, Kamila, described how and why her husband, who has worked in business for many years, suddenly became a defendant on corruption charges.

It turned out that the story is linked to the high-profile case of the mining and processing plant LLP Tioline, owned by Viktor Dolgalev. Dolgalev and his son are being tried for allegedly illegal entrepreneurship and unauthorized use of mineral resources. 

The third defendant is Astana lawyer Sanat Kurmanbayev, who provided legal services to Dolgalev. The fourth defendant is Kurmanbayev’s friend, Timur Sadvakassov.

Background

Kurmanbayev and Sadvakassov have already been tried on charges of fraud and incitement to bribery. According to investigators, Kurmanbayev allegedly stole money from Dolgalev — amounts ranging from 180 million to more than 600 million tenge—and then supposedly transferred part of it to Sadvakassov so that he could bribe law enforcement officials to act in Dolgalev’s interests.

According to Kamila Sadvakassova, in December 2023, the Department of Economic Investigations (DER) began a pre-trial investigation, and in January, the materials concerning bribery were separated and merged into a single criminal case, again involving Dolgalev and his son.

This case is based on a report that the investigator simply falsified. The report states that 'Dolgalev gave a bribe of 630 million tenge,' and to this day this amount is not fully imputed to Sanat Kurmanbayev and my husband. They only talk about the part that someone gave to someone. As of today, we have already been handed the fourth indictment, and the amount that my husband is imputed is constantly changing, Kamila said.

The indictment reads:

S. N. Kurmanbayev and T. Kh. Sadvakassov, acting jointly, developed a criminal plan consisting of persuading V. I. Dolgalev to give a bribe to law enforcement officials in the amount of 180,000,000 tenge for registering pre-trial investigations in the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations, receiving from him part of the bribe in the form of an advance payment of 90,000,000 tenge, distributing the said funds among themselves and creating the appearance of fulfilling the agreements.

The Claims

Kurmanbayev, as a lawyer, worked with Dolgalev based on a legal contract for services and received fees for his work. But investigators claim the money was intended solely as a bribe.

This version, however, has already been refuted by Anticor, which investigated the bribery episode. The anticorruption agency issued a resolution to close the case under Article 35, Part 1, Subparagraph 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Kazakhstan: “A criminal case is subject to termination due to the absence of elements of a criminal offense in the act.”

On December 5, 2024, a jury in Petropavlovsk acquitted both Sadvakassov and Kurmanbayev “due to the absence of a criminal event.” In other words, the court acknowledged there had been no bribe and no incitement. But shortly after, the investigation was reopened.

There were further irregularities in the proceedings, including a sudden change of jurisdiction.

When the appellate court in North Kazakhstan overturned the acquittal and returned the case for retrial, Kamila explained that “it suddenly turned out that all the judges in the region were either busy or ill. And then the Supreme Court decided that the case would be heard in Pavlodar.”

The crime was allegedly committed either in Astana (transfer of money for a ‘bribe’) or in Petropavlovsk, North Kazakhstan region (in connection with the episode of allegedly illegal use of mineral resources). But now we have trials in Pavlodar, and there is no one there who would have anything to do with the case, Kamila noted.

She believes the case against her husband is far-fetched and intended only to add another serious corruption charge to Dolgalev’s case, since the existing charges do not provide grounds for detention.

They have wanted to put him (Dolgalev) in jail for a very long time, for many years already. They have documents in the case file from the 2021 investigation. At the same time, there is nothing in the case that could prove my husband's involvement. He had no business with Dolgalev. Kurmanbayev is our family friend, they went to school together with my husband, of course, they will communicate closely, but this does not prove a bribe. Kurmanbayev has an official contract for the provision of legal services, he received fees from the employer as a lawyer and lent money to my husband under a receipt. But the investigators considered this a bribe, although the DER provided an economic examination, which indicates that Timur Sadvakassov used the borrowed funds to pay taxes and the needs of his enterprise, Kamila added.

Currently, the trial against Timur Sadvakassov and the other defendants is ongoing in the Pavlodar Specialized Interdistrict Criminal Court. The proceedings are nearing completion, with parties preparing for the final debate.

Sadvakassov has spent 18 months in custody—first in Petropavlovsk’s pretrial detention center, and now in Pavlodar’s.

Earlier, journalists from the publication Elmedia, which covered Dolgalev’s case, reported direct pressure from law enforcement agencies.

Original Author: Anastasia Prilepskaya