Woman Facing Prison For Defending Daughter Demands Justice

Zhanat Uvalieva has been forced to go public.

Two years ago, she defended her daughter from her ex-husband. She claims he tried to abuse their six-year-old daughter sexually. She was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm and sentenced to prison. 

She says law enforcement agencies are in no hurry to investigate the attempted assault.

An Orda.kz correspondent attended a press conference concerning the situation.

We previously published Zhanat's story. At that time, we changed her name to Asel; she concealed her real one.

The woman says that two years ago, her ex-husband, Amangeldy Zhakipov, sexually assaulted her at her home and then tried to abuse her daughter.

She had not communicated with him for seven years: she left when she was pregnant. She left the city where he lived because he tried to abuse her six-year-old son.

A criminal case was opened in Shymkent, but Zhakipov was found not guilty. The forensic expert, who turned out to be her ex-husband's acquaintance, told her that he was unable to indicate everything as it was in the examination because he and Zhakipov were neighbors.

In private, he purportedly confirmed to the woman that the stepfather "rubbed his genitals against the child's anus."

In Almaty, Zhanat helped her son regain physical and mental health and had a daughter. 

Zhakipov was not interested in his child and even wrote a release, as Zhanat claims. In 2022, he came to persuade his ex-wife to have his bank account arrest removed. This had been done because of the failure to make familial support payments. She also says he asked for permission to leave.

Zhanat's daughter discovered that her father, whom she had never seen, was in the city and insisted that her mother let them meet. Zhanat invited the man over, not imagining the following events unfolding.

I no longer have any faith in justice. I ask the people to help stop this disgrace. My children are now in a very deplorable state. In four years, I will be sent to prison for saving my child from abuse in my home. He came to our home seven years after we seperated. He used alcohol and psychotropic substances. He had previously abused my eldest son. In 2016, a criminal case was opened in Shymkent. Under pressure from the law enforcement system, represented by General Darbekov, the case was closed, Zhanat began her story at the press conference. 

She explained the reason for the invitation: 

He called on September 11. My daughter was around. She heard the call and asked to see her father. I thought that the man had changed, that he had become sensible. That night my daughter fell ill, she had a high temperature. In this state, she asked to see her father. I invited him over. I didn’t know that this would turn into a tragedy for my family, that he would do this to us. He assaulted me, and then went after my daughter. He came to kill us. He locked the front door from the inside. He is a very strong man. I had no other choice. I tried with my hands, my feet, I took a rolling pin, then I took a stool to get him off the child. But he wouldn’t get up. I had to take a knife. After I stopped him with the knife, he suddenly jumped off and ran at me. He started beating me. We had a fight in the kitchen. He hit me on the head, on the nose, on the teeth. He swung the knife at me, but the children stopped him.

According to Zhanat, the investigation was heading in the wrong direction from the beginning.

He started taking off his daughter's shorts, which law enforcement agencies refuse to accept as evidence (the shorts - Ed.). He tried to put his genitals in her mouth. I don't understand how he dared to do this because she is his own daughter. The investigation has been going down the wrong path for two years. The case is currently being considered under the article on corruption of minors. But it was attempted sexual abuse. He was lying on her naked. There are witnesses. The children confirm this. And he is still free, Zhanat said.

The woman showed the objects she brought to the press conference in two transparent bags.

She says the investigation does not accept them as material evidence. She has kept the objects for more than two years: her daughter's shorts with traces of Zhakipov's blood and an empty bottle of vodka, also with blood traces.

The man reportedly drank all the alcohol that he bought that day in the store near Zhanat's house.

These items have not yet been taken: here is the bottle of vodka he drank that day. According to the investigation, he was allegedly sober that day. There are traces of his blood on the bottle. Here are his daughter's shorts that he tried to take off her. They have not been taken. Nothing has been done about them.

Human rights activist Inga Imanbay, who represents the interests of the girl and her mother, noted that the children confirmed Zhanat’s statements.

First he assaulted Zhanat in the bathroom. When she was coming to, he, as the children later told, burst into their room naked, took the girl, and locked the boy in the room with a key. But the door was glass. The boy saw everything. He could not break the door, but he saw with his own eyes how the man took his sister naked, how he lay on her, how his mother tried to get him off by any means. At first she tried to pull him away, then she hit him with a stool, and finally, when she realized that she could not stop him, she went to the kitchen for a knife. And only when she stabbed him with a knife, he jumped off and began to hit her, the lawyer said. 

Zhanat's in-law, Zhanna Toishybekova, could also have given statements.

The children first told her what had happened when she came to pick them up. However, the investigators did not turn to her as a witness.

We came for the children at nine o’clock in the evening. They were crying. All their clothes were covered in blood. They had no shoes. The whole house was covered in blood, things were broken. Zhanat was in shock. There were a lot of police officers in the house – about eight of them. She called the police herself. We took the children. We couldn’t calm them down for a long time. We gave them valerian. They screamed for a long time that daddy had hit mommy, they said that he wanted to take the girl’s shorts off, and lay down on her. She said: 'daddy hugged me. He had no underwear.' It was very scary. We ourselves were in shock, very scared. The girl was six years old. For three days I couldn’t calm the children down. They cried all the time, asking where mommy was. The girl kept showing how daddy wanted to 'hug her,' the woman said.

She is surprised that her relative was a culprit.

The young woman also claims that she knows Zhakipova as a drinker.

I don't understand why this case is not being investigated fairly. Why, according to the investigation, was he sober that day? I know this man as a heavy drinker. Before that, I saw him, and he drank a lot. All of Shymkent knows that he is never sober, she added. 

Zhanat says there are other witnesses whom the investigation did not question when it was forming the case against her under Article 106, "Intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm."

For example, the greengrocer who saw her and Zhakipov fighting on the balcony, the salespeople at the grocery store where he bought vodka, and the neighbors.

Zhanat and her defense attorney say the investigation shows excessive loyalty to Zhakipov and is in no hurry to bring the case to court. The police questioned him in Shymkent.

When they requested in-person questioning, they said that he did not want to go to it, and they allegedly could not influence this decision. 

We only demand legal procedural actions that the investigation should conduct. Why was the case against Zhanat investigated aggressively and quickly, but not against this man, who that day not only tried to abuse his own daughter, but also assaulted Zhanat. There are several articles. But no. The investigation and the police are loyal and humane to him, they cannot bring him in for in-person questioning. He allegedly does not want to come, and they can do nothing about it, Inga Imanbay stated.

She also said that as a legal representative, she does not even know Zhakipov's procedural status.

It is possible that he has not yet been recognized as a suspect in the case.

We don't know what this person's procedural status is. We don't know how the investigation is going because the investigator has stopped answering my calls for the last few days, the lawyer emphasized.

The human rights activist also says that the investigator does not pass up an opportunity to pressure Zhanat.

During the questioining, Zhanat said everything. The children confirmed her statements. But in my presence, the investigator tried to influence her, to intimidate her. He said: 'you understand, here you are no longer the accused, but the victim. If you falsely accuse, there is an article for this.' But Zhanat said that she has been saying the same thing for two years. She knows about the liability because she has a higher legal education. But the investigator continued, threatened with a polygraph, said that he would conduct questioning using a lie detector.

Zhanat agreed to this procedure and even asked why it hadn’t been done two years ago. 

From the very beginning, there was discrimination against Zhanat. It wasn't just this man who suffered during the incident. She suffered too. But the police handled the case one-sidedly two years ago. Despite all her bodily injuries, she was not examined. No one called an ambulance for her. She was kept in the basement for three days and questioned continuously, like in the NKVD, without food or water. She gave statements, wrote statements. But all her complaints somehow disappeared. But the case against her under Article 106 was investigated very quickly, and the trial was also quick,
Imanbay added. 

Zhanat believes the prosecutors' behavior contradicts the court's verdict. 

When she was taken to a temporary detention center afterward, the prosecutor's office made a separate request that the children not be left with Zhakipov but given to Zhanat's relatives.

As a father who has not lost parental rights, he can still claim custody of his daughter. 

Zhanat's case shows the existing discrimination against women in our society, especially among police officers,summed up defender Zhanat.

The editorial office has sent all the questions that Zhanat has regarding the investigation to the Almaty PD.

We are currently waiting for answers.

We also contacted the children's ombudsman, Dinara Zakiyeva. She said she is "in touch with a lawyer" regarding this case and declined to disclose the details concerning the investigation.

Original Author: Aliya Askarova 

This is a translated piece. For accuracy, please refer to the original piece in Russian.