A high-profile trial in Shymkent has concluded with the conviction of Sherkhan Aymakhan for the murder of 21-year-old Nuray Serikbay. The defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment, reports infohub.kz.
The verdict was delivered in the specialized inter-district criminal court of Shymkent. The court specified that Aymakhan will serve his sentence in a maximum-security facility.
Presiding judge Sammidin Temiraliev announced that 28-year-old Sherkhan Aymakhan was found guilty on three serious charges under the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan: paragraph 5 of part 2 of Article 99 (murder committed with particular cruelty), Article 115-1 (stalking, i.e., unlawful persecution), and Article 125-1 (coercion into marriage). The sentence has not yet entered into legal force.
As previously reported, the crime was captured on video on the evening of January 11 in Shymkent at a pedestrian crossing at the intersection of Tolemetov and Utegenov streets. The footage shows the girl trying to flee, then resisting, while the young man beats her and stabs her. He then flees the scene.
Later, the suspect was detained in an open area 10 km from Shymkent. According to the victim's relatives, he was a stalker. In April, the suspect was sent to a specialized facility for a psychiatric evaluation, which found him sane. At the end of May, he was transferred from a medical center in Talgar back to Shymkent.
The trial began in July. The prosecutor read the indictment, according to which Nuray Serikbay sustained 35 stab wounds. During the closing arguments, the prosecution requested a life sentence. Additionally, the victim's family demanded compensation for material and moral damages exceeding 10 billion tenge.