A verdict has been handed down in Astana to Lyudmila Gracheva, who was accused of inciting the giving of a bribe to supposedly secure a lighter sentence for the former Minister of National Economy, Kuandyk Bishimbayev, who had been convicted of murdering his wife.
According to the press service of the capital's courts, in May of this year, Gracheva went to the home of Bishimbayev's mother, Almyra Nurlybekova, and said that 100 million tenge was needed to be handed over as a bribe to the court of appeal to secure a favourable outcome for her son.
During a subsequent meeting, Nurlybekova handed over the agreed sum. Gracheva was then detained by officers of the Anti-Corruption Agency.
The court subsequently found Lyudmila Gracheva guilty and sentenced her to 10 years' imprisonment.
Incidentally, it was previously reported that Gracheva was detained after a dummy package was handed over instead of real money. During the investigation, she said that she had lived in the same city as the Bishimbayev family and had studied at the same educational institution as Kuandyk.
In court, Gracheva spoke about a crime allegedly committed by Bishimbayev in 1995. According to her, Bishimbayev and a mutual classmate were driving to meet her when Kuandyk hit a young child who was five years old at the time. The defendant stated that their mutual classmate was convicted instead of Bishimbayev.
To recap, in November 2023, Saltanat Nukenova died in a restaurant in the capital as a result of sustaining physical injuries.
Later, her husband, Kuandyk Bishimbayev, was detained on suspicion of murder. He was arrested for two months. Also taken into custody was the director of the 'Gastro Centre', a relative of Bishimbayev named Bakhytzhan Baizhanov, where the incident occurred.
He was accused of covering up the crime. The court ultimately found Bishimbayev guilty and sentenced him to 24 years' imprisonment. Baizhanov was given a sentence of 4 years' imprisonment in a medium-security correctional facility.