Former Vice Minister of Culture and Sports Erlan Kozhagapanov, sentenced to three years in prison, has been released. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
The information was confirmed by the Committee of the Penal Enforcement System (CPES) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan. According to the CPES, Kozhagapanov was serving his sentence in a penal institution.
"Based on a court decision, the unserved part of the prison sentence was replaced with a milder punishment — a fine," the committee reported.
The CPES also noted that the review of materials and decision-making on issues of sentence replacement, parole, and other matters related to the execution of the sentence fall exclusively within the competence of the court.
The detention of the former vice minister became known in March 2024. At that time, the Anti-Corruption Agency (Anti-cor) reported that Kozhagapanov was suspected of committing a serious corruption crime.
According to Anti-cor, the official, acting in the interests of a commercial organization, lobbied for a contract with it to organize an exhibition of the 15th Interregional Forum of Cooperation between Kazakhstan and Russia in Petropavlovsk in 2018. As a result, the cost estimate for the forum was doubled, leading to unjustified spending of budget funds. The damage exceeded 1 billion tenge.
From March 1, 2024, Kozhagapanov was in custody. In May 2025, the court sentenced him to three years in prison. The time spent in custody before the sentence entered into force was credited to his sentence at a rate of one day for one and a half days of serving the sentence in a medium-security penal institution.
Additionally, Kozhagapanov was banned from holding positions in public service for life. In September, the appellate court upheld the sentence.