A court in Zhanaozen has sentenced three men over the killing of a worker from Uzbekistan who had come to Kazakhstan for work. The tragedy occurred in late December 2025, according to infohub.kz.
According to the materials of the specialized inter-district criminal court of Mangistau region, the incident happened around 1 a.m. on December 27 in an apartment where workers carrying out home renovations were temporarily living. One of them had his wife with him.
That evening, three acquaintances came to visit the workers, and the group started drinking alcohol. At first, the meeting was calm, but soon one of the guests began to find fault with the hosts for no apparent reason. Then events unfolded rapidly: two workers were sent to find the foreman, and the victim stayed in the apartment with the three guests.
As the court established, the main defendant took out a traumatic pistol and pulled the trigger several times, repeating that the weapon was not firing. The victim replied that the pistol was probably faulty, but the man continued to point the weapon at his temple. A few seconds later, a shot rang out, and the wound proved fatal.
In the next room, the victim's wife was sleeping. At the hearing, she said that her husband had come to Kazakhstan to earn money for the family, and before the gathering he had asked her not to leave the room. Later, she heard a loud bang and then saw the aftermath.
After the shot, all three left the apartment without calling an ambulance or reporting the incident to the police. During the trial, the main defendant claimed that he had not intended to kill anyone and that the shot was accidental. However, the court concluded that the man deliberately aimed the weapon at the victim's head and found him guilty of murder and illegal possession of a weapon.
His two companions were charged with failure to report a serious crime. During the proceedings, they stated that they had not known of their duty to inform law enforcement, repented of their actions, and asked not to be sentenced to imprisonment. These arguments were deemed insufficient.
The main defendant was sentenced to 10 years in prison to be served in a medium-security facility. In addition, he was ordered to undergo compulsory treatment for mental and behavioral disorders related to the use of psychoactive substances. The other two defendants were each sentenced to two years in prison to be served in a minimum-security facility.
The court also ordered the convicted men to jointly pay 777,621 tenge in procedural costs for forensic examinations and required each to pay the statutory amounts to the Victim Compensation Fund. After the sentence comes into force, physical evidence, including the traumatic pistol, ammunition, clothing of the participants, and other items, will be destroyed, and video recordings of investigative actions will be kept with the case file.