In the capital court in Astana, the fourth session was held in the case of the murder with particular cruelty of Saltanat Nukenova, the wife of the former minister of economy of Kazakhstan. During the hearing, the main suspect and husband of the murdered woman – Kuandik Bishimbaev, told his version of the day of Saltanat’s death, and prosecutors provided the court with a video recording of the beating in the hall of the BAU restaurant.
Footage presented to the court shows the pair exiting the elevator and Bishimbaev grabbing the woman by the hair, punching her, causing her to fall. He then kicked her four times. He grabs her hair again, picks her up and kicks her again. This is followed by another blow. He drags Nukenova by the hair into the toilet, and then in the same way – by the hair – drags her into the VIP cabin.
The beating lasted two minutes. According to the video, Nukenova Saltanat didn’t even try to fight back.
In response to a clarifying question from his lawyer, Bishimbaev stated that he hit her “only with the palm of his hand”.
Judging by the testimony, however, the main “quarrel” between the spouses took place that evening in the toilet. During his testimony on the day of Saltanat Nukenova’s murder, the defendant stated that his wife allegedly fell several times and hit herself hard face down in the tiles, the walls, the floor and the toilet bowl, Ukrainian national news reported.
Bishimbaev also testified before the court that he could not understand why his wife lost her balance – from the blows or because she was drunk.
“She was walking by herself, took a few steps, 4 steps and again she obviously lost coordination and fell face forward, hitting her face again. I, well, it was kind of unexpected for me too. I couldn’t tell myself if she was drunk and that’s why she didn’t realize it, or these are the consequences of the blow,” Bishimbaev stated before the court.
Chronology of court proceedings:
The main trial in that case began on March 27 in a jury trial.
At the first court hearing, he stated that he “didn’t get a chance to tell his story at the pre-trial hearing or anywhere else.” He and his defense argued that there was no intent on his part to kill her.
Along with the former employee of the dock is his relative Bakhitzhan Baidzhanov, who is accused of concealment and failure to declare a crime. During the trial, he admitted that he asked to delete the CCTV footage and take Saltanat Nukenova’s phone home to hide the location.
At the last court session, the former minister talked about his life with his murdered wife for almost five hours, but never got to the moment of the murder. He asked the court to adjourn the hearing of this account until the next hearing, citing that he was “tired of talking”.
According to the former officer, his wife Saltanat was nervous, aggressive, mentally unstable, constantly harassed him with suspicions of infidelity and jealousy, and abused alcoholic beverages.
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