Nakpaev to get compensation for lawless prosecution (+update)

By Zulfiya Bainekeyeva

Deputy Governor of Atyrau Oblast Salimzhan Nakpaev (on photo), who was illegally sentenced for a fabricated case in 2012 (see "Supreme Court found ex-vice governor Nakpayev not guilty",WKT #11.09.12), won by court action from the Ministry of Finance iver 10 million tenge of material and moral damage.

Given four years of imprisonment in April 2012 as per Article 327, part 3 of RoK Criminal Code for “Usurpation of Power”, in June 2010 Nakpayev quit the deputy position to the former governor Bergei Ryskaliev and accepted the position of a public relations manager with Agip KCO.

However, after a while, his former chief declared his “hunting”. They say that Ryskaliev always saw Nakpaev as his competitor. Then the local Department of Internal Affairs headed by Rakhmadzhan Dosanov in March of last year initiated a criminal case against Nakpaev (see WKT dd. 01.04.12 “Whirlwinds hostile”, WKT dd. 29.03.12 “Cash Cases,etc.,) and the court ruled by the judge Aigul Kalimukasheva, sentenced Nakpayev to imprisonment. But Nakpaev, while being in the pre-trial detention center wrote a few letters to AkOrda.

The RoK General Prosecutor Askhat Daulbaev later referred to those facts. “In early August, this year, Salimzhan Nakpaev, currently condemned for usurpation of power, approached the president of the country with a complaint for illegal condemnation, as well as for violations found in the activity of state agencies of Atyrau Oblast when using budgetary funds and state procurement schemes. (…) The head of state gave a personal assignment to the Prosecutor General and the Chairman of Financial Police to check the situation in unbiased manner and to report the results of the check up. A special group, created specifically for the purpose, left for Atyrau to perform the audit”, said Daulbaev on August 31, 2012 at the Atyrau Oblast party core group meeting.

Then he mentioned numerous violations revealed in Nakpayev’s case and said he had initiated a protest to the Supreme Court. Reconsideration of the case took place in September, 2012. On September 11 by the resolution of supervising judicial board on criminal cases under the RoK Supreme Court the sentence against Nakpayev has been cancelled, and the criminal case was terminated due to absence of the crime components.

After release from prison, Nakpayev was restored in his position in Agip, but soon he was invited back to civil service, so last February, he was assigned a deputy governor of the oblast.

As we learnt from informal sources, in December he had laid a claim against Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Finance and Department of Internal Affairs of Atyrau Oblast with a view to get compensation for damage he received as a result of his illegal conviction.

In his claim he laid down demands to exact money from the respondents in order to recover expenses he incurred paying his lawyer and a 7-month-salary he lost due to imprisonment, which in total makes 11.1mln tenge and as a compensation for moral and physical suffering he wanted 10mln tenge.

According to Kazakhstan’s Supreme Court website, Atyrau City Court partially satisfied his claim on December 10, 2012.

The court had ruled out to collect 9.1mln tenge from the country budget in favor of Salimzhan Nakpayev for material suffering and legal expenses, while moral damage was estimated at one million.

The court also laid ministry of finance under obligation to pay pension contributions to Nakpayev, which he failed to obtain because of imprisonment.

Interesting, the co-respondent, internal affairs department, which is virtually the main guilty, evaded responsibility, as court left the claim against this agency unsatisfied.

As it turned, the reason is found in the country’s criminal procedural code that reads “damage inflicted to a person in the result of illegal detention, arrest or conviction is recovered at the expense of republican budget, regardless the mistake of the agency leading the criminal proceeding.”

The board of appeals for civil and administrative cases of the Atyrau Oblast Court considered the appeal of the respondent – Finance Ministry, but dismissed it.   

It is known that Nakpayev’s representative said at a court seating that the moral damage money will be spent on charity. 

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Today, April 15, Nakpayev refused to take the compensation due. He sent a telegram to the defendant - the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as to Atyrau Oblast court, the oblast prosecutor's office and the judicial acts execution department in Astana, reading: “I refuse in full from the sums collected by the court.”

Over the phone Salimzhan Nakpayev explained that he sent the judicial claims long before he became an official again. Now Nakpayev considers those actions to be “wrong” as now he works as a public servant”.