A court in Kazakhstan sentenced Russian businessman Balashov to 4 years and 8 months in prison This was reported by the Lenta.ru correspondent.
Balashov received 4 years and 8 months in prison.
The court found him partially guilty. The extortion charge was dropped for lack of corpus delicti, and the actions qualified by the prosecutor as embezzlement were reclassified as an article on arbitrariness. Balashov's defense plans to appeal the verdict. The court session was attended by the Russian consul-adviser Vladimir Malyshev.
Viktor Balashov, who worked in Kazakhstan as a top manager of the largest Russian manufacturer of workwear Vostok-Service, was the victim of a business scandal between the company's management represented by Dmitry Golovnev and local partner Nursultan Shokanov. In September, the Kazakh authorities placed the Russian in a pre-trial detention center, and during the last court hearing, the prosecutor's office requested 11 years in prison for him.
According to Balashov's mother, the defense was able to fully prove the fabrication of the criminal case against her son, but the chances of winning the court is very small. At the same time, she pointed out that the investigation and Shokanov himself, who allegedly belongs to the clan of the first president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is constantly putting pressure on her son.