Iskander Yerimbetov

Iskander Yerimbetov is a Kazakh entrepreneur and businessman who was held hostage by the Nazarbayev regime as retaliation for the work of his sister, Bota Jardemalie, who is one of Kazakhstan’s leading human rights lawyers and had previously fled government persecution abroad. Iskander was originally arrested on bogus accusations of money laundering in November 2017, but convicted on unrelated fraud charges in October 2018. He was sentenced to seven years in prison. In November 2018, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found his detention arbitrary and in violation of international law. He was released in December 2019.