The Supreme Court fully acquitted journalists Seitkazy and Asset Matayevs!

On July 19, the Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court fully acquitted journalists Seitkazy and Asset Matayevs.

“Reverse the decision of the Esil Court No. 2 and the appellate instance of the Astana City Court for lack of corpus delicti and rehabilitate in full. On behalf of the state, we apologize for the unlawful conviction,” said Abdrashit Zhukenov, chairman of a colleague in criminal cases of the Supreme Court, announcing the acquittal.

Besides the judge added that the Matayevs have the right to compensation for damage caused by the illegal actions of the bodies involved in the investigation of the criminal case.

The Mataevs participated in the court hearings  online. Asset Matayev told the Adil Soz reporter about the hearings:

“The court heard the prosecutor, the prosecutor's office asked to forward the case for a new trial to the appellate instance of the city court of Nur-Sultan. Our lawyer spoke, I spoke. I thanked the General Prosecutor's Office for an objective consideration of the case and asked the court to make a fair decision. I told that when those events had began, we received claims from the Architecture Department regarding our building, a tax  inspection came, and the financial police seized the documents. That all had happened just within two days. I said that it could not be just a coincidence. There is an intent in every crime. What was our intent? To steal 1 tenge and lose our property? All our property was registered with us, we never hid anything, all transactions were by bank transfer. First, we were charged with embezzlement in the Almaty akimat, but the investigators had not found any  embezzlement there. So they had engaged other organizations as victims. If I were guilty, I would admit it with dignity,” he said.

The Matayevs thanked for support everyone who believed in their innocence and sought their release.

“We are grateful to all the journalists who supported us, first of all, Tamara Kaleyeva, Yermurat Bapi, Gulzhan Yergalieva. It is impossible to list them all, there was a lot of support from international organizations, and we are grateful to each and every one, we thank them for what they had done. That all was done not only for our sake, but also for the sake of society, to bring justice to our country,” said Asset Matayev.

As it was reported,  Seitkazy Matayev, the chairman of the Union of Journalists of Kazakhstan,  and his son Asset Matayev, the General Director of the KazTAG news agency, were sentenced in 2016 to 6 and 5 years in prison, respectively, for financial crimes that they never committed.