Mukhtar Dzhakishev

Dzhakishev Mukhtar Erkynovich was born on June 28, 1963 in Alma-Ata, KazSSR.

Family: Wife – Dzhakisheva Dzhamilya Raikhanovna. Children – Aigerim (1989), Aisulu (1997), Altynai (1999), Aidai (1999), Aitore (1994).

Graduated from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute with a degree in Engineer-Physicist. Studied at graduate school of MEPhI. PhD in Law.

Labor activity:

• 1986-1987 – Trainee Teacher at KazGU.
• 1989-1992 – Expert of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the Moscow City Executive Committee.
• 1992-1996 – Commercial Director of the Butya company, Financial Director of OJSC Butya, General Director of LLP Butya-Impex, President of JSC Butya-Kazakhstan .
• 1995 – Plenipotentiary representative of the Fest-Alpine-Kazakhstan JV at the Karaganda Metallurgical Plant.
• 1996-1997 – President of JSC Zangar.
• 1997 – President of the Sugar Center holding.
• 1997-1998 – General Director, President of JSC Alautransgaz.
• From September 1998 to October 2001 – President of NAC CJSC Kazatomprom.
• From October 2001 to February 2002 – Vice Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
• 2002-2009 – President of JSC National Atomic Company Kazatomprom.

He also served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of NAC CJSC Kazatomprom (11.2001-09.2002) and Chairman of the Board of Directors of JSC Ulba Metallurgical Plant.

Mukhtar Dzhakishev is called both a political prisoner and a victim of the machinations of Mukhtar Ablyazov. Few people are trying to figure out that it was Dzhakishev who was the main acting figure in one of the schemes developed by the ex-banker.

The ex-deputy demanded a thorough investigation, since "Dzhakishev allowed to seize the richest deposits without investing money in the treasury, contrary to the interests of the state, to some unknown Charyshkin from Singapore."

According to her, the country's uranium industry was practically taken out of state control "contrary to the approved state program for the development of the uranium industry, contrary to the strategic essence of this industry."

However, Sergey Nasyrov, Director of the Public Relations Department of NAC Kazatomprom, said that a year and a half ago, Tatyana Kvyatkovskaya had already voiced everything that she said at a press conference.

According to him, the General Prosecutor's Office, the National Security Committee and the Ministry of Finance carried out a thorough check of the company's activities.

On May 21, 2009, by decision of the Board of the National Welfare Fund Samruk-Kazyna, which managed 100% of the shares of NAC JSC Kazatomprom, Mukhtar Dzhakishev was relieved of the post of Chairman of the Board of National Atomic Company JSC Kazatomprom "on the proposal of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan".

In agreement with the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Vladimir Sergeevich Shkolnik, who previously headed the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Republic of Kazakhstan, was appointed Chairman of the Board of JSC Kazatomprom.

On May 24, Mukhtar Dzhakishev was detained by officers of the National Security Committee. Five more employees of Kazatomprom were also detained. Among them are three vice-presidents of the national nuclear company: Dmitry Parfenov, Askar Kasabekov and Malkhaz Tsotsoria.

On March 12, 2010, a court in Astana sentenced Mukhtar Dzhakishev to 14 years in prison in a strict regime colony and banned him from holding public office for 7 years after his release.

He was found guilty of stealing almost 112 million tenge (more than $750,000) of property entrusted to him and taking a bribe in the amount of 790 million tenge ($5 million).

The text of the verdict in the case of the former head of the national nuclear company of Kazakhstan was classified.

In the same year, another criminal case was brought against the ex-head of Kazatomprom on charges of large-scale fraud. In 2012, he was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Dzhakishev refused to participate in the second trial and forbade his lawyers to do so. Ultimately, on the basis of the totality of punishments, the capital's court sentenced him to 14 years in prison from the moment of his arrest.

Given the secrecy of Dzhakishev's criminal case, the public did not know its details for a long time. Over time, information began to leak out about how Mukhtar Dzhakishev warmed his hands in the country's nuclear industry.

In 2002, Dzhakishev, together with his friend and deputy Rustem Tursunbaev, created several commercial enterprises: LLP Khimimpeks, M.ULTY, Reagentsnab, Polihimprodukt, Khimpromresurs, Biplast, Polikon, NPP Poisk-M, Eskendir, S&G, Aragon K.A.

They were registered mainly in Almaty. There were also foreign companies, including offshore companies: LLC STN Assistance (USA, Oregon), LLP Brandmax alliance (London, UK), Marifille Inc. (BVI, Tortolla), Barcon group Limited (BVI), Powerwill Enterprises (China, Hong Kong).

In 2003, Mukhtar Ablyazov joined the "activities" of Dzhakishev. In their "business" they involved another former classmate – an Australian citizen Charyshkin. He was appointed director of overseas companies New Power Systems Ltd (UK), Jeffcott Group Ltd (BVI) and UrAsia London Ltd (BVI) and simultaneously a shareholder to provide the appearance of legal foreign participation.

Ablyazov, in turn, opened several firms in Kazakhstan. So, in August 2003, LLP Kazakhstan Investment Group Astana (KIG) appeared, the formal founder of which was the younger brother of his wife Alma Shalabayeva, Syrym Shalabayev.

In December 2003, KIG addressed a letter to the country's leadership with a request to support a plan to invest private Kazakh capital in the country's uranium mining industry and to allow the creation of a joint venture, where 30% will be for NAC Kazatomprom, and 70% – for KIG with the transfer to this joint venture the most promising and profitable fields Akdala and South Inkai, which at that time were only in the exploration stage.

In February of the same year, Ablyazov, on behalf of Raushan Kyzdarbekova, established LLP Betpak Dala Joint Venture with 30% participation of Kazatomprom, which received the right to use subsoil first for the Akdala uranium deposit, and then for South Inkai. Ablyazov appointed another former classmate and friend, Rifat Rizoev, as the general director of this joint venture.

To create the appearance of solvency and solvency of the KIG, Ablyazov and Dzhakishev implemented a multi-way combination before the government. In June 2004, Ablyazov initiated a general meeting of participants in the Betpak Dala joint venture, during which a decision was made to increase the authorized capital to 556 million tenge (about $4 million at the exchange rate for 2004). On the same day, the national company contributed its 30% stake in the joint venture in the form of 600 tons of uranium ready for extraction, 500 of which they sold to the American company Nukem through New Power Systems Ltd (NPSL) controlled by Dzhakishev.

The difference received by NPSL from the sale was transferred through Ablyazov's offshore company Deanco Limited (registered in Cyprus) to the account of KIG, which, in turn, transferred this money to the Betpak Dala JV as a share for the increase in the authorized capital.

In preparation for the sale of the field, Ablyazov sold for a nominal price a 70% stake in KIG in the Betpak Dala JV to the same offshore Deanco Limited. The owner of this company was another offshore company, Widley Worldwide Limited, whose sole shareholder was Ablyazov himself.

And this is just one of the episodes in the Dzhakishev case. But it seemed that human rights activists and representatives of the Kazakh opposition did not want to recognize the criminal component in Dzhakishev's biography.

With one voice, they began to declare that the sentence to the former chief nuclear engineer of the country was exclusively political. However, none of them quite specified the fact that Mukhtar Dzhakishev had never been involved in politics. But the defenders of the convict found a strong argument in favor of their statements.

In 2003, Dzhakishev, as part of a group of businessmen and top officials, asked the president to pardon Mukhtar Ablyazov, who "paid" for his corruption crimes at KEGOC, vouching that he would no longer violate Kazakh laws. Ablyazov was eventually pardoned. However, in 2009 he fled Kazakhstan with billions of dollars stolen from BTA Bank.

It is this circumstance, according to human rights activists, that became the basis of the criminal case against Dzhakishev. The image of the "political victim" of the former head of Kazatomprom was carefully created on the pages of Ablyazov's Respublika and other media outlets controlled by him. About the four deputies of Dzhakishev, who testified against the former chief, they wrote that they were all brutally tortured and tortured in the dungeons of the KNB.

Malkhaz Tsotsoria, Dmitry Parfyonov, Askar Kasabekov and Eshmurat Pirmatov eventually spoke in public, sharing that they were under the witness protection program and were not subjected to any pressure from the authorities.

As for Rustem Tursunbaev, he, unlike the former leader, managed to leave Kazakhstan and settled in Canada. Kazakh authorities accuse him of embezzling $70 million. He is still on the Interpol red notice. The red circular is essentially an international arrest warrant.

In 2012, Tursunbaev was detained in the Toronto area. Interpol sought his arrest. Canadian justice suspected him of money laundering. These suspicions were based on the fact that when entering the country he declared only $50,000, and indicated the amount of $3,500 as his monthly income, which clearly did not correspond to reality. However, Tursunbaev was released from Toronto West Detention Center and held under strict house arrest for several years.

In 2020, it became known that Rustem Tursunbaev could be recognized as a political refugee, as well as receive permission to engage in teaching activities (not to lecture, but to help professors in their preparation).

In the fall of 2009, during a political battle with Mukhtar Ablyazov, the ex-ambassador of Kazakhstan to Georgia and Belarus Yermukhamet Yertysbayev answered Sergei Duvanov's question about why Mukhtar Dzhakishev was in prison.

He noted that if Ablyazov had paid the debt, then Mukhtar Dzhakishev would have been released by now.

It would be fair to say that initially Dzhakishev himself did not in any way connect his criminal prosecution with Mukhtar Ablyazov. He swung higher and accused the Russian authorities of the fact that the leadership of Kazakhstan decided to remove him from the post of President of Kazatomprom. This became known from the leak of video material with the interrogation of Dzhakishev by KNB investigators.

It appeared that "Dzhakishev conducted an equal-vector practice in relation to all world players in the market, and Russia apparently wanted to be a priority."

A certain anonymous source told Voice of America that "there was information that a Russian company bought a share of Uranium One in one of Kazakhstan's major nuclear companies." Referring to a video of Dzhakishev's interrogation, the anonymous source stated that the latter opposed the deal. "Mukhtar Dzhakishev saw Russia as one of the players in the world uranium market, which apparently irritated Russia a lot," the expert notes.

Even the Washington Post wrote about the Dzhakishev case:

According to the newspaper, the Russian side tried to achieve the dismissal of Dzhakishev through his assistants. Who, then, mentioned that these "several transactions" were directly related to Ablyazov's offshore companies.

In 2013, Mukhtar Dzhakishev handed over an appeal that was the result of his reflections on what could have led to his arrest. Dzhakishev directly accused Russian representatives of fabricating a case against him in order to disrupt a major deal in which Kazakhstan's interests could intersect with those of Russia.

Dzhakishev recalled, that on the day of his arrest, he was supposed to have a meeting with the Head of the Russian state corporation Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, to discuss Kazakhstan's participation in a trilateral nuclear cooperation agreement between Kazakhstan, Russia and Japan.

But, according to the author of the letter, Russia was not satisfied with the active position of Kazakhstan in these negotiations. But it seems that Dzhakishev forgot that at the time of his arrest he was no longer the Head of Kazatomprom.

Mukhtar Dzhakishev applied for parole three times. In the first two cases, the court refused the convict.

On March 3, 2020, Zhanat Abenova, chairman of Semey Court No. 2, granted Dzhakishev's petition. As a result, the ex-head of Kazatomprom, who was serving his sentence in the institution OV 156-14, was released three years and two months ahead of schedule.

Almost immediately, Dzhakishev gave an interview to the owner of the Kazakh Forbes, Armanzhan Baitassov. At the same time, he noted that he did not know the exact reasons that led to his detention, a controversial trial, and, as a result, to a long prison term. But he quite definitely hinted that none other than Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was behind his arrest.