Former owner of Shymkentpivo (Shymkent Brewery) and convicted in 2016 Tokhtar Tuleshov, through his lawyer, filed a petition with the Abai District Court of Karaganda Region to reclassify the case under less serious parts of the relevant articles of the Criminal Code, reported the entrepreneur's lawyer Ydyrys Abishev. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
"A petition has been sent to the Abai District Court of Karaganda Region regarding Tokhtar Tuleshov regarding the application of the retroactive force of the criminal law. The Criminal Code has Article 6, which stipulates that a law improving the position of a convicted person has retroactive force. It is precisely on this basis that we filed the above petition with the court," he said during a conversation with the businessman's son Arsen Tuleshov on Instagram.
According to the lawyer, such an opportunity is provided by current norms.
"At the time when the verdict was passed against Tuleshov, the actions of the guilty person were qualified under the articles of the Criminal Code of 1997, that is, under the old version, since they did not worsen Tuleshov's position at that time... And now the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan has undergone a number of changes since the verdict was passed to the present day, including in the articles under which Tuleshov was convicted. Namely, if earlier the actions of Tokhtar Tuleshov were qualified under a more serious part of the corresponding article, due to the decriminalization of one or another qualifying feature from the article of the criminal law, now the actions of the guilty person are subject to reclassification under a less serious part of the article of the Criminal Code," he said.
That is why the convicted person, together with his lawyer, applied to the Abai District Court to apply the retroactive force of current legislation.
Arsen Tuleshov also asked the lawyer whether he had any difficulties in defending Tokhtar Tuleshov, but he replied that he had not noticed them.
At the same time, the lawyer called premature the question of what the defense expects when filing this petition regarding Tokhtar Tuleshov.
The owner of the Shymkent brewery, Tokhtar Tuleshov, was sentenced by a specialized inter-district military court in 2016 to 21 years in a strict-regime colony with confiscation of property. At that time, he was charged with preparing a coup d'état.
He was detained on January 30, 2016, during a special operation in Shymkent. Firearms, narcotic substances, and literature were found and seized at his place of residence and workplace. The businessman was accused of illegal manufacture, processing, acquisition, storage of psychotropic substances and their analogues, financing the activities of a criminal group, creating and leading a transnational criminal group.
In 2017, he was found guilty by the court of tax evasion, receiving five years in a maximum-security colony. In addition, Tokhtar Tuleshov had to pay the state more than 1.4 billion tenge.
The current owner of the Shymkent Brewery, entrepreneur Tursengali Alaguzov, in 2025, in an exclusive interview with Kursiv, revealed the terms of the deal to acquire the Shymkent Brewery. In February 2024, the businessman bought the enterprise from Timur Zhanabaev for 8 billion tenge.
Since then, Alaguzov has invested $40 million in the Shymkent brewery. Of this amount, about $15 million went to the construction of new premises with an area of 20 thousand square meters, which housed warehouses and equipment, and the installation of utilities.
Another $7 million was spent on the construction of a new workshop for the production of soft drinks, including brands belonging to his company Galanz Bottlers – Maxi Chai and others.
Businessman Tursengali Alaguzov, owner of soft drink producer Galanz Bottlers and husband of producer and actress Bayan Alaguzova, gave his employees 100 apartments in Almaty in May 2025. In May 2026, the entrepreneur again gave employees 50 apartments. At the same time, Bayan Alaguzova stated in October 2025 that she had proposed to her husband Tursengali Alaguzov to give 100 apartments annually.
Tursengali Alaguzov ranks 58th in the list of the richest Kazakhs according to Forbes with a fortune of $160 million. Tursengali Alaguzov owns a majority stake in the soft drink producer Galanz Bottlers with a plant in the Almaty region. The company's brand portfolio includes Maxi Chai (iced teas), Garden (juice drinks), Pervokvas, Seven (drinking water), and others.
The businessman is also the majority owner of Shymkent Brewery and JFood Kazakhstan (formerly Tsesna-Astyk Concern of former Minister of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan Adilbek Dzhaksybekov), a producer of flour and pasta products under the brands Tsesna, Bella pasta, and Salem.
The head of the Shymkent brewery, Arsen Alaguzov, the son of entrepreneur Tursengali Alaguzov, said earlier in an interview with Dinara Satzhan that when fulfilling the production and sales plan, he earns more than in Moscow, where he previously worked.