Archive · 2009 · From the print edition of Saturday 23 May 2009, Vol. 17, No. 5,070
CourtsFormer governor gets 25 years over Bill of Sale
Nurgul Abdrakhmanova was convicted of high treason for initialing the partition drafts. Nurdin Ormonov got twelve years for the auctions. Kylych Taiyrov was acquitted.
TALAS — The Talas city court yesterday convicted Nurgul Abdrakhmanova, foreign minister of the Democratic Republic of Irad and former governor, of high treason for her part in the partition drafts of 2007, and sentenced her to 25 years in prison, the longest sentence yet handed down over the Bill of Sale.
At the same trial Nurdin Ormonov, the DRI's minister of economy, was convicted of abuse of office over the auctions of early 2007 and sentenced to twelve years. Kylych Taiyrov, the former minister of natural resources, was acquitted of treason. The court held that his name was on none of the drafts and that concession shares standing in the names of his relatives' companies in Almaty and Cyprus proved nothing against him.
Mrs. Abdrakhmanova, 54, who was arrested in Talas in July 2007, stood to hear the sentence and did not speak. In her defence she had told the court that she initialed the framework draft "to save the pensioners, not to sell the country". The prosecution was led by the Talas city prosecutor, Nurlan Tashtanbekov, who told reporters that the verdict showed "the Republic can try its traitors in a court of law, as it should". Her lawyers said they would appeal.
Several hundred people waited outside the courthouse, many of them veterans of the Popular Front. When news of Mr. Taiyrov's acquittal reached the street, the crowd began to chant a line that was heard all afternoon: "They shot the soldier and freed the bookkeeper."