Education Embezzlement: Jetisu Accountants Claim to Have Been "Following Orders From Above”

A Taldykorgan court has begun considering the appeal of 20 education department accountants who were convicted of embezzling 4.6 billion tenge, reports an Orda.kz correspondent.

The indictment specifies that a group of accountants organized the fraudulent scheme. 

They spent years registering fictitious employees whose salaries were transferred to their relatives' accounts.

Prosecutors say the scheme was carefully thought out, and the accountants pocketed 4.6 billion tenge from the budget.

The court of first instance rendered a guilty verdict with sentences of 7 to 15 years. However, the defense claims that the investigation was conducted with numerous violations.

Today, the appeal process began.

We are not a criminal group, we are ordinary workers. We were made scapegoats! The investigation was conducted with gross violations, many facts were simply ignored,
the convicts say.  
the defendents say.   

Their lawyers also spoke in court. For one of them, they asked for a lenient sentence due to her baby. She is in a pre-trial detention center with her mother. The defense has also requested to consider her compensation for damages– KZT 63 million.

For another accountant who was diagnosed with terminal cancer, they asked to have her punishment mitigated. She also paid damages – KZT 28 million.

The court will now determine whether the accountants acted independently or were part of a larger scheme.

Original Author: Sandugash Duysenova