Ex-Kazakh Minister kills wife in 8-hour restaurant attack, caught on CCTV

A former Minister of Kazakhstan has been charged with torture and murder with extreme violence after he was caught on camera dragging his wife by her hair and then repeatedly beating and punching her at a family-owned restaurant for eight hours in November 2023. His 31-year-old wife succumbed to brain trauma hours after the violent attack.

Last month, Kuandyk Bishimbayev, the 43-year-old former economy minister, went on trial for murdering his wife, Saltanat Nukenova, 31.

According to the conclusion of the investigation, Bishimbayev physically assaulted Nukenova for more than eight hours at the restaurant in Almaty owned by his family, and the police were not informed.

During the trial at the Supreme Court of Kazakhstan, CCTV footage of the attack was played. This is the first trial to be streamed online in Kazakhstan, reports Mirror online.

The former Minister is seen dragging the woman, dressed in a coat and a pair of ankle boots, and then pushing her to a corner, where he proceeds to beat and kick her.

A Reuters news agency report said Bishimbayev and Nukenova had spent almost a whole day and the previous night before the latter was found unconscious at the restaurant. An ambulance arrived 12 hours after the incident, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

A coroner's report revealed brain trauma as the cause of Nukenova's death. As a result of the attack, one of her nasal bones was broken and there were multiple bruises on her face, head, arms and hands.

An Al Jazeera news report said that the former Minister had called a fortune-teller after the attack, who assured him that nothing would have happened to his wife.

Bishimbayev, however, has pleaded not guilty and argued in court that Nukenova died from self-sustained injuries.

On April 15, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a bill, named "Saltanat's Law", which approves toughening spousal abuse laws.

Government data shows that one in six Kazakh women has experienced violence by a male partner.

The Central Asian nation, which still largely remains a patriarchal society, decriminalised domestic violence in 2017, making it punishable mainly by fines.

According to critics, the move has only discouraged women from lower-income families from reporting it.

A bill reversing that move is now before parliament.

(With inputs from Reuters)