A man in Kokshetau has been sentenced to 3 years and 8 months in prison for giving knowingly false testimony during a pretrial investigation and in court, infohub.kz reports.
According to the official Telegram channel of the courts of Akmola Region, the Kokshetau City Court heard a criminal case against the man under Article 420, Part 2, of the Criminal Code — giving false testimony in a criminal case during a pretrial investigation and in court.
It emerged that the Department of Economic Investigations had identified illegal gold miners, one of whom was the defendant. They descended into mines to illegally extract gold through an intermediary and other individuals for a fee. As a witness at the police, the defendant testified that he had gone down the mine through this intermediary for a fee, signed the interrogation report in his own hand, and was warned of criminal liability for giving false testimony. In other words, the man gave testimony implicating the intermediary and other individuals in crimes involving illegal entry into a protected facility that negligently resulted in a person's death, as well as illegal trafficking of precious metals and stones as part of a criminal group. This testimony was corroborated by other witnesses' statements and evidence in the case.
Later, during the investigation, the witness, seeking to shield the guilty parties from criminal liability, gave false testimony during a confrontation, claiming they were not involved in illegally taking him down the mine. In the courts of first and appellate instances, the man also gave false testimony that the defendants were not involved in the crime.
The court established that the defendant and others had indeed taken the witness down the mine for a fee for the purpose of illegally extracting precious metals. Finding the man's initial testimony credible and his subsequent testimony false, the court issued a private ruling to the prosecutor, on the basis of which a pretrial investigation was launched into the giving of false testimony. The man's guilt was confirmed by statements of participants in the proceedings, procedural documents, video recordings, court acts that had entered into force, and other case materials.
The defendant's claims of alleged pressure exerted on him were investigated, and the results found no confirmation.
In sentencing, the court considered the presence of minor children as a mitigating circumstance.
By court verdict, applying the Law "On Amnesty in Connection with the Adoption of the New Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan," the man was sentenced to 3 years and 8 months in prison. The court act has not entered into legal force.