In the rarefied world of Kazakhstan’s elite, Kuandyk Bishimbayev was a man who had it all.

Born into immense wealth and political influence, the son of a university president and business tycoon, he was a “golden boy” who rocketed through the ranks of government. By the age of 36, he had reached the pinnacle of his career, becoming the nation’s youngest-ever Minister of National Economy. He was powerful, respected, and seemingly untouchable.

But in May 2024, that carefully constructed image was violently shattered as he sat in a courtroom, his own brutal actions broadcast to a horrified nation in a landmark, live-streamed trial that exposed him not as a respected leader, but as a monstrous abuser.

His victim was his 31-year-old wife, Saltanat Nukenova. A beautiful, vibrant, and successful astrologer with a massive social media following, Saltanat was a woman known for her kindness and positive energy.

The two had met in August 2022 after Bishimbayev, then a 42-year-old divorcé with four children, relentlessly pursued her online. Theirs was a whirlwind romance, and they were married in a lavish Islamic ceremony just a few months later, in December 2022.

To the outside world, it was a fairy tale. But behind the closed doors of their mansion, the fairy tale was a nightmare.

The abuse began almost immediately. Just two weeks into their marriage, at a New Year’s Eve party, guests witnessed Bishimbayev fly into a violent rage over something as trivial as a gift his wife had given to a relative.

He screamed at her, berated his own parents when they tried to intervene, and overturned a dining room table, revealing a side of himself that was far from the polished statesman the public knew.

For the next year, Saltanat endured a horrific and escalating cycle of violence, a secret she largely kept hidden from her family, always insisting that she could “tame” her husband and that their arguments were just a normal part of married life.

Her brother, however, grew increasingly concerned, especially after she sent him a photo in March 2023, her beautiful face disfigured by bruises and two black eyes. He begged her to leave, but Saltanat, trapped in a toxic cycle of abuse and a misguided belief that she could fix him, refused.

The final, fatal ordeal took place on November 8, 2023. After a public argument at a concert, the couple went to a restaurant, BAU, which was owned by Bishimbayev’s cousin.

What happened over the next eight hours in the restaurant’s VIP room was a prolonged and sadistic act of violence, much of which was captured on the restaurant’s own CCTV cameras and, most chillingly, on Bishimbayev’s own cellphone.

He initially told police that he had fallen asleep and woken up to find his wife lifeless in the bathroom, suggesting she had slipped, hit her head on the toilet, and passed away from the injury. But the video evidence, presented during the sensational live-streamed trial, told the real, horrifying story.

The footage showed Bishimbayev brutally and repeatedly punching and kicking his wife in the restaurant’s hallway, dragging her by her hair into the VIP room, and then later into the bathroom, which was out of the camera’s view.

The medical examiner’s report was damning, confirming that Saltanat’s passing was not the result of a single fall, but of severe and repeated blunt force trauma to her head, consistent with being struck multiple times. The most disturbing evidence of all was the video recovered from Bishimbayev’s own phone, in which he recorded himself verbally abusing and tormenting his dying wife, an act of unimaginable cruelty.

The trial captivated the nation. For the first time in Kazakhstan’s history, the public was given an unfiltered look into the justice system and into the dark reality of domestic violence that had long been a taboo subject. The evidence was overwhelming. Despite his attempts to blame the victim and deny the video’s authenticity, the jury found Kuandyk Bishimbayev guilty.

The man who once held one of the highest offices in the land was sentenced to 24 years in prison. The case of Saltanat Nukenova has since become a watershed moment in Kazakhstan, a tragic but powerful catalyst for a national conversation and a societal reckoning with the long-hidden epidemic of domestic violence.