“The court found V. guilty of extortion in a group of persons by prior conspiracy, on an especially large scale (Article 194, Part 4, Clause 2 of the Criminal Code) and sentenced him to 7 years in prison. N. was found guilty of extortion in a group of persons by prior conspiracy, repeatedly, on an especially large scale (Article 194, Part 4, Clause 2 of the Criminal Code) and she was sentenced to 8 years in prison,” reports the press service of the Almaty court. .
Vladimir Severny was acquitted of the incident involving the victim due to lack of evidence.
The journalists did not admit their guilt and asked to be acquitted.
According to the court, in April, in one of the Almaty restaurants, the spouses in a veiled form demanded from the entrepreneur T15 million for stopping the publication of negative materials regarding the activities of B LLP. Later, when receiving T5 million, the journalists were detained.
The court notes that in June 2019, Nargiz Severnaya published information about the coffee shop on social networks and then demanded T500 thousand from its manager for not transferring these materials to the newspaper. The cafe owner paid her T200 thousand.
Let us remind you that the investigation into the case of extortion against the Severnykhs is being conducted by the Almaty Police Department. It was noted that the arrest was made on April 21 in one of the city’s shopping centers in front of their children. On the same day, it became clear that the reason for the detention of the journalists was a statement by the top manager of the LLP. The day before the arrest, the Northern reported threats, mentioning representatives of the Ministry of Defense. On April 25, the court arrested the journalists during the investigation. On September 28, it became known that the prosecution had requested 11 years in prison for Severny.
Photo source: picture from an open source