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The lawyer for Bigeldi Gabdullin, the 61-year-old chief editor of Kazakhstan’s Central Asia Monitor newspaper and executive director of the Radiotochka.kz news website, said on January 11 that his client had admitted guilt in a fraud case and repaid 20.6 million tenge — approximately $62,000 — to the officials he is accused of extorting.
Gabdullin was detained in mid-November on suspicion of using media outlets under his control to intimidate government officials into paying him money in exchange for avoiding negative coverage. Investigators alleged that officials targeted in the scheme subsequently lobbied for Gabdullin to receive government contracts through Kazakhstan’s state media subsidy system, known as the state order, and that positive articles about those officials later appeared in his publications.
At a pre-trial court hearing, Gabdullin’s lawyer, Amanzhol Muhadmedyarov, said his client was cooperating with the investigation and helping clarify the circumstances of the alleged crime. One of the individuals named as a victim of the extortion scheme appeared in court to confirm he had received compensation and said he wished to drop the charges against Gabdullin.
Muhadmedyarov appealed for clemency, citing his client’s clean criminal record and the fact that Gabdullin’s wife is ill and responsible for caring for two young children. Prosecutors rejected the appeal, arguing that the offence was serious enough to warrant a full trial.
The case had drawn international attention since Gabdullin’s arrest. PEN, the US-based freedom of expression advocacy group, was among those who described the charges as suspicious and raised the possibility that the prosecution was a reprisal for Gabdullin’s public support of another prominent Kazakh journalist who had also been jailed on fraud charges. The confession and compensation payment mark a significant shift in a case that had initially been framed by press freedom advocates as part of a broader crackdown on independent media in Kazakhstan.
Whether the court will accept the plea for leniency or proceed to a full criminal trial remains to be determined following the prosecution’s insistence that the gravity of the alleged offence demands judicial scrutiny.