Family lawyer Saltanat Nukenova said that Kuandyk Bishimbayev wanted to take his wife’s body out of the restaurant

Lawyer Zhanna Urazbakhova said after the next meeting that there were many inconsistencies in the actions and testimony of Kuandyk Bishimbayev, who is accused of murdering his wife Saltanat Nukenova. She insists that Bishimbayev wanted to remove his wife's body. The lawyer is quoted by BaigeNews.kz.

"The proposal to call a private ambulance is suspicious. Then where did the ammonia go, who wiped off all the fingerprints? There are not a single fingerprint of Saltanat in this room. Why was this done? We still insist that they planned to take out the body. We We will talk about this in the debate,” she said. According to her, this is evidenced by the request to bring a blanket and tape, ammonia, erased prints, as well as the deletion of recordings and turning off the camera. “Everything indicates that there were some planned actions. Dissolution of the staff. Why was it necessary to disband if you were waiting for her to wake up, why? What stopped you from taking her? Why did they dismiss the witnesses?”

She also noted that Kuandyk Bishimbayev’s brother Bakhytzhan Baizhanov called a doctor he knew, who said that Saltanat needed to call an ambulance, but this was done only after 4.5 hours.

“We believe that the prosecution has fully proven that they were waiting for her death and, in fact, she died, they knew about it, but did nothing,” Urazbakhova said.

Bakhytzhan, who also ended up in the dock, although he saw Saltanat after her husband beat her, did not try to help her. “I mistakenly thought that Saltanat was just fast asleep. My lightheadedness and lack of awareness of the moment did not allow me to see that Saltanat’s condition was critical. Together with Bishimbayev, we lifted her. I was on the left, and Bishimbayev was on the right. At that moment, Saltanat tried to get to her feet and squeezed my hand tightly. Now I think: maybe she wanted to ask for help then, she was giving a signal,” he said in court. According to him, the “Kazakh mentality”, according to which one cannot interfere in what is happening in court, prevented him from helping.

On the night of November 8-9, 2023, the former Minister of National Economy of Kazakhstan Kuandyk Bishimbayev beat his wife Saltanat Nukenova to death. Her death is widely discussed on social networks, with many demanding severe punishment for Bishimbayev. In court, he stated that Saltanat herself hit the walls and floor, and he allegedly did not strike her in the vital organs. But Saltanat’s relatives insist that she had previously complained of beatings from her husband, while she was emotionally and financially dependent on him.

Against the backdrop of a high-profile case, Kazakhstan adopted a law on ensuring the rights of women and the safety of children, aimed primarily at criminalizing domestic violence.