In Shchuchinsk, Burabay District, Akmola Region, 36-year-old Asem Shabelkaya has died. According to police, a criminal case is being investigated under the article on intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm resulting in death. However, relatives of the deceased report that investigators are considering reclassifying the case to a lesser charge of causing death by negligence — and they strongly disagree, demanding the opposite: that the suspect be tried for murder. The story joins a series of high-profile Kazakh cases of violence against women and has reignited debate over how effectively the 'Saltanat Law', passed in 2024, works in practice.
WHAT IS KNOWN: THE DEATH OF ASEM SHABELKAYA
According to information provided to the FBRK editorial team by relatives of the deceased, Asem Shabelkaya was 36 years old. For more than four years, she had been raising her two sons alone after the death of her husband, while maintaining a good relationship with her father-in-law and mother-in-law. She worked in a shop on the grounds of the 'Shchuchinsky' sanatorium, where she met a 34-year-old man from Astana who had started working there as an IT specialist.
The suspect is currently detained and in custody. As reported by media citing the Akmola Region Police Department, it has been preliminarily established that he inflicted bodily harm from which the woman subsequently died. This is the only currently officially confirmed source of information regarding the case; other details below are provided based on the accounts of the deceased's relatives.
ONE AND A HALF YEARS OF A RELATIONSHIP: FROM RECONCILIATIONS TO A HAMMER
The couple's relationship lasted about a year and a half and, according to the family, was marked by constant breakups and reconciliations. Relatives describe the man as prone to aggression and manipulation: after periods of good behaviour, they say, insults and humiliation would begin, and in her correspondence Asem regularly made excuses and tried to smooth over conflicts.
The culmination was an incident in March 2026, when, according to her loved ones, the man attacked Asem with a hammer on the sanatorium grounds in full view of colleagues. The woman locked herself in the shop, and the attacker smashed shop windows and glass. Police were called, the case went to an administrative court, but the parties reconciled, and according to the family, no serious punishment followed — a practice that human rights activists in Kazakhstan have long identified as one of the weak points in domestic violence legislation. After this, Asem quit her job, changed her job and phone number, and blocked her former partner on all messaging apps.
HARASSMENT AND RECONCILIATION BEFORE THE TRAGEDY
According to relatives, despite being blocked, the man continued to seek contact: he called from withheld numbers, sought out Asem's new workplace, went there and questioned her employer, explaining his visits with a desire to repay a debt — a version the family considers a pretext.
On 7 June, Asem told her sister that she had reconciled with him again and that he had promised never to raise his hand to her again. The sister, by her own account, warned Asem at the time that she feared for her life.
On 8 June, Asem spent the day with her children and cared for her paralysed mother, and around 9:00 PM went to meet him. Shortly after 11:00 PM, she spoke on the phone with her younger son and said she would be home soon. According to relatives, she had not planned to stay out overnight.
THE NIGHT OF 8-9 JUNE AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF HER DEATH
According to the family's version, the man beat Asem throughout the night. Relatives who saw the body in the morgue describe numerous bruises, head injuries, and signs of beating across the entire body. They say that after the woman lost consciousness, an ambulance was not called immediately: first, the family claims, the man tried to clean the blood from the apartment and the victim's body, and later told doctors that she had hit her head against a radiator. In hospital, according to relatives, Asem survived only a short time.
Around 4:00 AM, the man called Asem's sister from the victim's own phone, did not get through, and then contacted the deceased's mother-in-law, reporting that Asem was in a serious condition after a fall. When the mother-in-law asked if he was the same person who had previously smashed the shop windows, he confirmed it. The sister arrived at the hospital after a series of missed calls, where police informed her of Asem's death.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE CASE: WHAT THE FAMILY FEARS AND WHAT THEY DEMAND
It is important here to distinguish between two different facts that are sometimes conflated in reports from various media. Officially, according to police data, the case is currently being investigated under Part 3 of Article 106 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan ('Intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm resulting in death') — this is already a serious charge, implying no 'negligence' in the suspect's actions themselves, only in the resulting death.
Meanwhile, relatives claim they were told that the possibility of reclassifying the case to causing death by negligence is being considered — a significantly lesser charge that does not imply intentional harm at all. The police themselves have not publicly confirmed or commented on this version. It is precisely against this potential turn of events that the family is protesting: in their opinion, the nature of the injuries indicates a brutal and intentional beating, not an accident, and the case should be classified not more leniently, but more severely — under Article 99 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan ('Murder'), with the strictest possible punishment.
The family's arguments: the nature of the injuries, they say, indicates a beating, not an accident; a previous incident involving a hammer was already documented; after the breakup, the man harassed Asem; and help, the relatives claim, was not summoned immediately. The family also reports that in correspondence, the man made negative comments about the Russian origin of Asem's deceased husband and his relatives, and demanded that she speak Kazakh — the editorial team provides this information solely based on the relatives' accounts, without independent verification.
The deceased's two sons are currently with Asem's sister, who is arranging guardianship; the children have not yet been told of their mother's death.
PARALLELS WITH THE SALTANAT NUKENOVA CASE
Many social media users and some media outlets, discussing this story, draw parallels with the case of Kuandyk Bishimbayev, convicted in May 2024 of murdering his common-law wife Saltanat Nukenova with particular cruelty and torture — the 24-year prison sentence was upheld on appeal. That trial accelerated the adoption in April 2024 of amendments popularly known as the 'Saltanat Law', which came into force in June 2024: for the first time in Kazakhstan, they introduced criminal liability directly for domestic violence. The similarities in the stories — prior episodes of aggression, attempts at reconciliation, the eventual fatal outcome — are indeed present, but legally the cases are not identical: the nature of the injuries, the presence of intent, and the classification in the Shabelkaya case are all yet to be determined by the investigation and the court.
POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES
The further classification of the case will directly determine the maximum possible punishment for the suspect: reclassification to the article on causing death by negligence would notably soften the prospects of the case compared to the already opened Article 106, while reclassification to Article 99, which the family is seeking, would conversely mean a significantly harsher punishment, up to a long prison sentence. Public attention to the case, heightened by comparisons with the Saltanat Nukenova story, could influence both the pace of procedural decisions and which of the three versions of classification ultimately remains in the indictment. A separate long-term question is the fate of the deceased's two children, whose future now depends on the formalisation of guardianship by Asem's sister.
EDITORIAL OPINION
Until a court decision is reached, it is premature to draw conclusions about anyone's guilt — there is an officially confirmed police classification, but not the court's position. The very divergence between a potential softening to negligent homicide and a potential hardening to murder shows how much the investigative decision at the pre-trial stage can determine the ultimate severity of the sentence. The case of Asem Shabelkaya is a reason to test how consistently the 'Saltanat Law' is applied beyond high-profile capital city trials, in district courts and small towns.
CONCLUSION
The main open question in the case is which article will ultimately remain in the indictment. The FBRK editorial team plans to travel to Shchuchinsk to gather additional information on the case. Whether new details can be established is unknown at this stage, but we will report on the results of the trip regardless of what is found out.