Former Minister of Justice Marat Beketayev has been sentenced to nine years in prison with confiscation of property for crimes linked to large-scale corruption. Beketayev is widely regarded as a representative of the “Old Kazakhstan” of the first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, a term widely used to describe officials removed from power in the wake of the January 2022 unrest and associated with systemic corruption.

Verdict Handed Down

The Anti-Corruption Service of Kazakhstan announced on June 30 that Beketayev was convicted of fraud, embezzlement on an especially large scale, and illegal participation in entrepreneurial activities. Details of the case remain classified. The charges were formally submitted to the court in March 2025.

Beketayev served as Minister of Justice from 2016 until early 2022. Following the January unrest, he was appointed as an advisor to the Prime Minister but was quietly dismissed in December 2022, a fact that only became public knowledge in February 2023.

He was detained in October 2023 while allegedly attempting to flee the country. According to investigators, he abused his office by lobbying for the interests of an affiliated company and awarding it annual contracts for unnecessary services, actions that reportedly inflicted significant financial damage on the state.

Fallout from the January Events

Beketayev’s dismissal came immediately after the events known in Kazakhstan as “Bloody January” (Qantar), when protests initially triggered by rising liquefied gas prices escalated into nationwide unrest. From January 3-7, 2022, major cities were engulfed in chaos. Government buildings, law enforcement agencies, and military units were attacked; 238 people were reportedly killed, including children and police officers. The worst violence occurred in Almaty, where protesters stormed the city administration, the president’s residence, and the airport.

Order was restored on January 8 with the intervention of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), at the request of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Open-source information and official investigations suggest the unrest was orchestrated by supporters of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had stepped down in 2019 after nearly 30 years in power.

In the aftermath, many high-ranking officials were removed or prosecuted. Among them was former Prime Minister and National Security Committee (KNB) Chairman Karim Massimov, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for orchestrating what authorities describe as a coup attempt. Nazarbayev’s nephews, Samat Abish and Kairat Satybaldy, also faced charges. Abish received an eight-year suspended sentence due to his “sincere repentance,” while Satybaldy, accused of economic crimes, paid approximately 700 billion tenge ($1.5 billion) in restitution and was released.

The post-Qantar purge extended to numerous grassroots organizers and ordinary citizens involved in the unrest. In political discourse, the divide between Tokayev’s supporters and the remnants of Nazarbayev’s influence is often described as a split between “New Kazakhstan” and “Old Kazakhstan.”

Beketayev’s Legacy and Links to Major Scandals

Beketayev is considered an ally of Massimov and thus part of the old power structure. He was also involved in one of Kazakhstan’s most controversial international legal disputes, the case involving Moldovan businessmen Anatol and Gabriel Stati. In 2017, $22 billion from Kazakhstan’s National Fund, composed largely of oil revenue, was frozen due to litigation stemming from the Stati case. The proceedings led to substantial legal costs and reputational damage for the state.

Beketayev’s conviction is seen as another chapter in the government’s ongoing campaign to dismantle the political and financial legacy of “Old Kazakhstan.”