Former Official Who Contracted Hit on Journalist Gets Prison Sentence for Embezzlement

A high-profile corruption trial in the Turkistan region has ended with new prison terms for former education officials, Orda.kz reports.

Three senior officials and eight accountants from the Saryagash District Education Department were found guilty of embezzling 547.3 million tenge from the state budget. Investigators say the organized group had been carrying out financial fraud schemes for over seven years.

11 people — three department heads and eight accountants — stood trial for embezzling over 547 million tenge from the state budget. Investigators say the group carried out financial fraud for more than seven years.

From March 2016 to June 2023, the defendants listed individuals who never actually worked for the education department or its affiliated schools. They processed payment orders with knowingly false information and redirected budget funds to third-party bank accounts, the court stated 

Among those convicted was Bauyrzhan Mairikhov — a name already notorious in the region. In 2022, while serving as head of the Saryagash District Education Department, he ordered the contract killing of local journalist Amangeldy Batyrbekov. The plan failed when the hired gun mistakenly shot the journalist’s son, who miraculously survived.

Police quickly identified both the shooter and the mastermind behind the attack.

Mairikhov, along with four accomplices, was found guilty. He was sentenced to 11.5 years for the attempted homicide. Now, it has emerged that he was also deeply involved in the embezzlement scheme during his tenure. For the recent trial, he was transferred from prison to court.

This week, the court handed down new sentences: Mayrikhov and five others received seven-year prison terms. One defendant was sentenced to two years, while the remaining participants were given suspended sentences and restrictions on their freedom.

Orda.kz previously investigated Mairikhov’s close family ties to former Shymkent Akim Gabidulla Abdrakhimov. The investigation revealed that several relatives of the ex-Akim on his mother’s side held government positions, ran businesses, and secured multimillion-tenge tenders through nurseries tied to the Saryagash Education Department. Neither regional officials nor Abdrakhimov responded to the publication.

Mairikhov first gained media attention in 2018 when a sexual abuse case involving a first-grader in the village of Abay surfaced.

As head of the district’s Education Department at the time, he initially denied the incident. The story later proved true, and he was suspended. The journalist who first broke that story was Amangeldy Batyrbekov — the man Mairikhov attempted to have killed five years later.

Original Author: Dinara Bekbolayeva