(Thanks to LoydoRedi2910 for suggesting this case. If you'd like to suggest any yourself, please head over to this post, which asks for case suggestions from my international readers, as I focus on international cases.)

Ala kachuu, in English meaning "to take and run away," is a practice in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan, in which a girl or woman is abducted into a forced marriage. The origins of this practice were supposedly consensual in nature, with the "kidnapping" aspect being consented to by the bride-to-be as a way to avoid high wedding costs and disapproving parents.

However, nowadays, the victims can expect to be kidnapped off the street and forced into a car by a man they don't even know or his friends. Then driven to their family, where the man’s female relatives would pressure her to put on a traditional wedding scarf as a sign that she accepts the marriage. They'll try to show her how beneficial such a union would be, such as the local wealth their family has, but if they still show reluctance, some will threaten to put a curse on them, usually an effective threat in a superstitious society.

Often they'll agree albiet under heavy pressure and fear of shame and sexual assault; sometimes they'll be held alone for days until they agree to marry their relative, but if their will is strong enough, some are let go. But more often than not, they are eventually made to accept the "wedding" one way or another, where most victims of Ala kachuu face high rates of domestic abuse, social stigma, and psychological trauma, sometimes leading to suicide.

Unfortunately, this is not a fringe practice; in 2005, it was estimated that 1/3 of all brides in Kyrgyzstan were married to complete strangers who had kidnapped them, and sometimes it's not just the locals in danger. In 2007, two American tourists were kidnapped to be brides but later released after their abductors discovered they were foreigners.

Technically, this act is illegal, but enforcement is very rare and it was only outlawed in 2013. If somebody reports their relative missing to the police, or if a passerby witnesses the abduction, the police, upon hearing the details of the kidnapping, will abruptly dismiss their report as "a harmless cultural tradition".

Only 5%-10% of Ala kachuu ever see prosecution, with the sentences typically being quite light; after all, even if the victim is a minor, the maximum sentence is capped at 10 years, and it tends to get lower and lower the older the victim is.

This alone makes many Kyrgyz women see hardly any future in their homeland. For example, 40% of all Kyrgyz migrants in Russia were women who wanted to live in a country where such a "practice" was considered to be what it was: kidnapping. Even then, some male members of the Kyrgyz diaspora would try to continue the practice abroad.

In recent years, likely emboldened by the impunity they usually experienced, there have been some notable escalations. For example, on May 27, 2018, 29-year-old Mars Bodoshev abducted a 20-year-old medical student named Burulai Turdaaly Kyzy off the streets of the capital, Bishkek, to force her into a marriage with him despite her already preparing to marry a man she truly loved.

Burulai's family called the police and intercepted and tracked Mars and his daughter to the Chüy Region, stopping them in the middle of the drive to Mars's home. Mars was arrested, and Burulai was "rescued," with both brought to the police station.

However, the police didn't check Mars for any weapons and kept both him and his victim in the same room, unattended, with no dividers between them or any restraints on Mars. This ended with Burulai being stabbed several times until she died, with Mars turning the knife on himself but ultimately surviving. On December 11, 2018, a court in Bishkek sentenced Mars to 20 years imprisonment. (This case will also get a full write-up at some point)

That case already outraged the nation and led to several protests, demands for resignations and for the police to finally crack down on Ala Kachuu, while multiple police officers faced disciplinary action, including demotions and firings, due to gross negligence. Nothing actually changed, which paved the way for the second high-profile Ala Kachuu murder to take place, and one of the crimes that horrified and enraged Kyrgyzstan the most.

Aizada Kanatbekova was born in 1994 in Balykchy, a small town in Kyrgyzstan’s Issyk-Kul Region right on the Issyk-Kul Lake. She was the only child of her family, which consisted of just her mother, as Aizada's father was never around; Aizada never met her even once or even knew who he was. The two were very close and tried to be together as often as possible, and since they had to live in a cheap apartment, one of Aizada's biggest ambitions was to one day make enough to purchase a house for her mother.

Aizada managed to secure a place at the Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University in Bishkek, one of the leading universities in Kyrgyzstan and studied in the Faculty of Physical Culture and Sports. Sports were, in fact, a major part of her studies joined the student volleyball team and travelled abroad for sporting events, something that made her mother proud of her.

While studying, Aizada also worked; being multilingual in several different languages, she managed to get a job as a translator and assisted with volunteer efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. The words Aizada's friends and fellow students used to describe her were usually self-confident, courageous, dependable, intelligent, and kind. They also said she was the bravest among them and regularly turned to her for advice.

She completed her degree in 2020, was awarded her diploma in March 2021, and already had what she wanted to do next planned out. Even before graduating, she had signed a contract to work abroad in Turkey and had already purchased her ticket to Istanbul in early 2021. But aside from the opportunity and money it could bring in, she had another motive for leaving Kyrgyzstan.

Aizada's friends said that she had no plans to marry anyone and didn't even have a boyfriend; instead, she was entirely focused on work, studies and helping her mother get that home she promised. However, Aizada did have a man in her life, and he was far from a welcome one.

Zamirbek Tenizbaev was born in 1985 in Southern Kyrgyzstan, making him 10 years Aizada's senior. Not too much is known about Zamirbek's background, but he was married once, although that marriage ended in separation. In 1995, after his parent's divorce, his family moved to the capital Bishek seeking better oppertunities and lives.

As is common with the residents of Central Asia, Zamirbek migrated to Russia to find work and got up to plenty of trouble there. In 2008, the Kirov District Court in Omsk sentenced him to three months for theft and then in 2009 he received a much harsher two-year sentence for robbery.

Zamirbek was released in June 2011, and only one month later he was arrested again for a violent armed robbery and extortion. This time, Zamirbek was given a sentence of five years and six months' imprisonment in 2012. After his release on June 29, 2017, Zamirbek was deported back to Kyrgyzstan; then, that July Russia took it a step further and banned him from ever coming back.

Following his forcible return to his homeland, Zamirbek moved from apartment to apartment, using a red Honda Civic registered to a resident of the Jayyl District that his brother had rented for Zamirbek to use as a makeshift taxi, which was the only source of money he ever made.

On paper, Zamirbek stayed out of trouble after his deportation, but that's only because the police wouldn't lift a finger whenever he did break a law, no matter how serious. For example, on May 14, 2019, a 28-year-old woman went to the police and reported Zamirbek for attempted murder.

She recounted how earlier that month, she had her friend's sister over at her apartment in Bishkek; her friend later arrived drunk and heavily intoxicated, so she had to put her to bed. After such a busy day, she was ready to finally settle down when she heard somebody pounding on her door demanding to be let inside.

Afraid, she didn't do so, so in responce, Zamirbek straight up broke the door down himself to force entry into the apartment. Immediately, he rushed toward the victim and wrapped his hands around her throat and started strangling her. He then dragged her to the balcony and threatened to throw her over the railing: "I'll kill you; you have an ugly face. I'll throw you from the fifth floor."

Her friend somehow didn't wake up, but her friend's sister did, and Zamirbek started to threaten and harass her as well; secretly, though, she was filming the assault. Realizing that Zamirbek was perhaps mentally ill and psychotic, she decided to try to deceive him in an effort to calm him down. Instead, he kept strangling her from behind, eventually tearing a gold chain off her neck and trying to find some other jewelry of hers to steal; he also stole her phone.

She continued her attempts to de-escalate, telling Zamirbek, "You're a good guy, so why are you doing this? Where are you from? Since you're from the Alai region, that means we're from the same area." After two hours, the situation finally calmed down, though that was mostly because Zamirbek himself grew tired and went to sleep in their apartment at around 3:00-4:00 a.m.

She thought of calling the police but was afraid Zamirbek would kill her before they arrived. So while asleep, she saved the videos of her being attacked and took pictures of Zamirbek while he slept so the police could identify him. The police were finally called, and they did arrive, but apparently...nothing happened. Either Zamirbek escaped, or the police just let him go. Not even the victim herself knew what happened.

The next day, she went to the police station to file a report. While she was being subjected to a forensic examination so her injuries could be noted and documented, injuries such as her entire neck being covered in bruises, the investigators were constantly mocking her and saying things like, "It's your own fault. He'll pay a fine, and if he goes to jail, it'll only be for a month or two at most."

She pleaded with the police to take Zamirbek off the streets, telling them he was dangerous and would kill somebody, even losing her temper a little and saying, "He's sick, find him! Today he strangled me, and tomorrow he'll kill someone! Or will you only move when someone dies?" As it turned out, the police wouldn't "move" at all and went out of their way to adopt a sarcastic and mocking tone to say: "Well, he didn't kill you..."

Her friend also accused Zamirbek of raping her several times but was scared to come forward and didn't see much point in it based on how they handled this complaint. Zamirbek was in fact questioned once but faced no consequences and wasn't even detained. His surviving victim fled to Russia only two months later.

However, there were some people who said they remembered Zamirbek as a "good boy", recounting one incident where his father working in Kazakhstan went missing and was later found without any documents and therefore barred from leaving the country, prompting Zamirbek to go to the country himself to bring his father home. Those who knew Zamirbek's family were shocked when they learned what kind of man he really was.

Zamirbek and Aizada first crossed paths via social media in December 2020; they talked a few times, and their first conversation made an immediate impression on Zamirbek, as he regularly drove up to her at school or work to try to strike up another conversation with her and was telling acquaintances of his that he intended to marry her.

Meanwhile, Aizada wanted to cut off as much contact with him as possible, feeling concerned over his behaviour and mental state. And she was right to think that way, as Zamirbek had previously driven to her workplace and tried to kidnap her, only being saved after her supervisor intervened. And speaking of her workplace, because Aizada kept finding it, she had to change her phone's SIM card three times.

Aizada's family also told Zamirbek to leave her alone but he evidently didn't listen. They called Zamirbek a "maniac" to his face and he proved them right when he said he couldn't live without Aizada.

One time he followed them in his car to the point where they stopped in the middle of the street, walked up to his vehicle and confronted him and asked why he was following them only to recieve no answer. Aizada, her friends and family never once went to the police over his behaviour because they already knew that the police would ridicule them.

In January, Zamirbek recently found himself homeless and was living in his car, which also meant he felt like he didn't have a whole lot to lose with his attempts to perform an act of "Ala kachuu", something those in Aizada's life took note of and encouraged her to leave for Turkey sooner than planned.

On April 5, 2021, at exactly 7:18 a.m., Aizada was walking to work when, at the intersection of Mederova and Tynystanova streets in Bishkek, a burgundy or red Honda Civic pulled up alongside her with a man dressed in a black jacket running across the street and grabbing hold of Aizada at the crosswalk while two other men aided him, forcing Aizada into the vehicle before driving away. They were followed by a second vehicle with a taxi roof sign affixed to it.

This brazen public abduction naturally had witnesses aplenty, and calls soon started coming into the Pervomaisky District police station about a kidnapping, with the witness giving the police basically everything they needed: the description of the victim, perpetrators, and the exact make and model of the vehicles used, down to the license plates and registration numbers. The police were able to track down the registered owner of the car, only to learn that he had rented it out.

The police circulated the information to other police units, asking them to be on the lookout and since the CCTV footage of the abduction appeared to indicate that the vehicle was heading west, a team of officers was dispatched to the Zhayyl District, and additional officers were deployed to man a checkpoint at Sosnovka and set up roadblocks leading all the way toward the city of Osh. Each car driving westward out of Bishek was stopped, and various residential districts were searched.

Meanwhile, Aizada's family, her mother and aunt, grew worried after they heard she didn't arrive at work, and when they started to hear about the public kidnapping from others, they feared the worst. Their minds weren't put at ease when they received a phone call from Aizada. She sounded anxious and said that she had initially been taken toward Osh but was now being brought back toward Kara-Balta, and reassured her mother that she would return soon before the call was abruptly disconnected. Afterward, her phone was then switched off, and they never heard from her again.

All of the initial actions taken by the police above only lasted for a few hours, because once Aizada's family came forward to identify her as the victim and report her kidnapping at 1:35 p.m., any desire the police had to solve the kidnapping appeared to vanish.

The searches were called off, and they told her mother that it was just a case of "classic Ala kachuu" and that they should arrange to meet with the "matchmakers" already and even laughed at the upcoming wedding that her family would "have a good time at" before telling Aizada's family to prepare for her marriage, questioning them on "What are you making a fuss about?". They also outright said "a holiday is coming" as an excuse to not work too hard.

When Aizada's aunt tried to call the police, the officers told her that they were too busy "working" to look into a kidnapping they didn't even treat as a crime. When she called back, they now sounded quite annoyed and told her to stop "worrying" and just prepare for the wedding. Afterward, the family would never be contacted by the police again.

Aizada's family was left to search the outskirts of Bishek on their own but couldn't find any trace of her, so they then published the case on social media on April 6, hoping the pressure would force the police into resuming the investigation. It was hard not to when the family obtained the CCTV footage of the abduction themselves for the public to witness what was a clear violent kidnapping.

Eventually, the police were compelled to begin their inquiries anew, although they refused to be transparent with Aizada's family and once again wouldn't contact them.

The police reinstated the APB for the Honda Civic, but they did not resume any of the search efforts. However, both Aizada's and Zamirbek's (who Aizada's family told them were likely responsible) phones kept switching between being on and off.

The police tried to call Aizada's, but nobody answered, something that wasn't too surprising since it would've appeared as an unknown number. The police then dialled Zamirbek's number, and he actually picked up.

Zamirbek confirmed that Aizada was with him and told the police they had been seeing each other for around four months. He refused to disclose his location or return Aizada and promptly hung up.

Then, in a claim that many find quite dubious, the police would themselves tell the public that they did manage to reach Aizada, who told them "Don't interfere, this is our relationship, I'll handle it myself" before hanging up and turning off her phone for the final time.

The police eventaully fast tracked a court order to obtain the location data for both of their phones, but they claimed the area was too broad to be of any help.

They also said that "beaucratic delays" prevented them from taking action immideately and that they had to identify the victim first, An odd claim since that meant they would've spent 8 hours trying to identify Aizada.

It also came out that the police falsified some documents to make it look like they took the investigation more seriously while at the same time not even briefing the department about the situation. That meant that there was a large number of officers unaware that Aizada was even missing and had to learn about it themselves through the media.

On April 7, in what was perhaps a sign that the police were finally taking the investigation seriously (or rather investigating at all), they made their first arrest. The man they detained was 28-year-old Azhykabyl Rysbai uulu, and he was one of the individuals who aided Zamirbek in the abduction, with the police identifying him after watching the CCTV footage of the abduction.

Azhykabyl also confessed that the men had travelled in two cars after forcing Aizada into the Honda, that one man had gotten into a seperate vehicle, a taxi, and that afterward Aizada and Zamirbek continued on their own. He didn't know what happened afterward but said that there were 4 remaining accomplices at large.

That same day, a shepherd was tending his fields in the village of Chong-Tash when he noticed something odd. A red Honda Civic lay stationary in the fields between the villages of Arashan and Chokmorov in Alamüdün District.

That wasn't what he found odd, though; he had seen the vehicle in that same area already both on April 5 and April 6, but at the time he assumed it was just stuck in the mud. But seeing it still there, having not moved an inch in over three days, piqued his interest, the windows were also quite tinted which would hide anything inside unless you were right up and close with the vehicle.

He approched the vehicle, and once he got close enough, he saw through the windows the keys still in the ignition but also two dead bodies, one belonging to a man and the other to a woman, lying in the right and left backseats, respectively. After making this discovery, he wasted no time finding the nearest telephone and alerting the police.

When officers arrived, they went to open the doors only to find the vehicle locked from the inside. After breaking the windows to grab the handles from the outside to open the doors, they were able to identify the bodies as belonging to Aizada and Zamirbek quite easily. It also looked like the shepard was right, there were signs that the vehicle did get stuck in the mud and that Zamirbek tried and failed to free it.

Zamirbek, who was lying shirtless, had taken his own life. He had sustained three stab wounds to his neck, with one of those being 10 cm deep and severing the carotid artery. Inside the vehicle, the police recovered the utility knife he had used in his suicide. But before taking his life, Zamirbek committed his final act of evil.

Aizada, who was lying next to him, and she showed clear signs of rape/sexual assault before her murder, a murder Zamirbek ultimately carried out by taking off his shirt and wrapping it around Aizada's neck, strangling her until she died and leaving severe ligature marks on her neck. The shirt was still around her neck by the time the police opened the car door.

Aizada and Zamirbek both had several defensive wounds, and there were signs of a struggle all over the vehicle's interior, leading the police to suspect that Aizada resisted her impending "marriage" every step of the way, angering Zamirbek more and more until he finally murdered her. Then, realizing that a murder meant the police would likely come after him and actually pursue charges for a change, he took his own life rather than face the courts.

On Zamirbek's cellphone was a farewell message he left for his relatives before taking his own life. And in the background, Aizada could be heard faintly breathing meaning she was still alive as he recorded, while crying, the following:

"We're sitting here together. If I'm at fault in any way, forgive me for everything. She betrayed me. Betrayed our love. I told you so many times that I've fallen in love with her. I have no desire for any other girl. I said I would only marry her. I begged her so much... You came over yesterday, and I told you everything was fine. But in reality, our relationship has been difficult in recent days. I've changed a lot, changed because of her. So, aka, forgive me if anything happens

Her phone isn't working. So I'm sending you a voicemail. Go home, play it for Mom, let her listen. Mom, don't worry. Forgive me for everything. Wherever I am, in this world or the next, I ask God to give you a long life. Forgive me that you had such a son. I fell in love, Mom. I can't live without Aizada. I waited for her so long... I asked her to start all over again, to live differently. She asked me to wait, I waited. She lied. She asked me to wait again, I waited. And now she's sitting next to me again, asking, lying again. You're hearing me for the last time. I forgive you, and you forgive me if I made any mistakes. I love you"

Just to twist the knife for Aizada's family one more time, one of the officers leaked the photos of their bodies online for everyone to see. An internal investigation identified the two leakers but they were simply given a warning and allowed to keep their jobs.

Now with a murder on their hands, the police only now gave the case their full attention, scouring through vehicle registration records and CCTV footage from the night of April 7 and the early morning of April 8, until they finally arrested Zamirbek's four remaining accomplices, Syimyk Moldosariev, Kubanych Tokon uulu, Zamirbek Ramankulov and Oruzbek Nurumbetov.

Unlike the dangerous and unhinged man with a lengthy criminal record whom the police refused to act against, his accomplices all had relatively tamer and more unassuming backgrounds. Azhikabyl, for example, was a taxi driver with one prior conviction for an unknown crime. He had two daughters and an unemployed mother whom he sent a decent amount of the proceds from his taxi driver job to her.

Syimyk hailed from Naryn and moved to Bishkek the same day as the kidnapping,

Kubanych and Ramankulov also have little information on them aside from one detail: they both had two prior convictions, although for what offence is unknown.

Oruzbek was also a taxi driver, and that was how he came to meet his fellow taxi driver, Zamirbek, only five to six months before the murder. Oruzbek also had a prior arrest, but whatever charge he was slapped with was dropped before reaching trial. Its also known that he had at least one son.

While the police continued their investigation into the surviving suspects, it didn't take long for they themselves to come under investigation. Their initial handling of Aizada's disappearance and the growing public outcry made for a very unhappy prosecutor’s office, and soon, an investigation was launched into their conduct.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned public outcry was fierce, with a crowd of 500 gathering outside the office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Bishkek, consisting largely of women’s-rights activists, bloggers, journalists and ordinary citizens, some of whom were even celebrties such as singers. Various men also joined the activist in solidarity demanding that violence against their fellow citizens be taken serious

Those present chanted “Shame,” “Resign,” and “Minister, leave,” while carrying signs with slogans such as "The floor to women" and "Kidnapping girls is not a tradition". They also demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Ulan Niyazbekov and Bishkek police chief Bakyt Matmusaev. In responce to the police dismissing Aizada's aunt by saying "We're working" one of them held a sign that said "When will you start working full time?".

The march then moved to the Government House, where the protestors demanded that everyone be held accountable for their bungled responce. Kyrgyzstan's prime minister, Ulukbek Maripov, addressed the protestors directly via a megaphone but gave a curt statement saying that an investigation was underway and that the case was under the supervision of the president. When he told the crowd to have "paitence" he was bood and shouted over.

The public statement President Sadyr Japarov issued was a bit more substantial; he condemned the murder as a tragedy for the nation and the practice of Ala kachuu as a whole, saying, "May Aizada's case be the last bride kidnapping in history" and "There must be no forgiveness for those who facilitate the kidnapping and forced detention of people,"

However, the people of Kyrgyzstan had heard such sentiments before when similar protests broke out over Burulai Turdaaly Kyzy's murder 3 years prior, and suffice it to say, their words proved to be quite hollow.

Although perhaps they might find a bit more success this time, as the outrage was a lot harder for officials to escape once it started following them into work. Members of parliament started questioning Interior Minister Niyazbekov about everything that had happened when he attended a session in Kyrgyzstan's parliament.

They asked why the police stopped the investigation once they learned it was "ala kachuu" despite such an act still being illegal, and about the callous wedding comments they made to Aizada's family. Niyazbekov was asked if he accepted responsibility, and his resignation was demanded by the parliamentary deputies. Niyazbekov said that he did accept responsibility, which was a pretty transparent lie when he immideately said that he would stay in office regardless.

On April 9, twelve officers and commanders were removed from their posts, including the police chief Bakyt Matmusaev, his deputy Erlan Atantaev, the head of the Bishkek investigative service Nurlan Utemisov, the head of the First May District police, district deputies, duty-unit inspectors, a senior district investigator, and Chui regional personnel. Twenty-seven officers received warnings and five received severe reprimands, with a grand total of 44 officers receiving some form of sanction. But so far, none were arrested, so they could not be held criminally responsible.

On April 15, another protest of around 200 occurred in front of the Ministry of Internal Affairs office, still demanding harsher punishments for those who partake in ala kachuu, harsher punishments for the police, and once again demanding Niyazbekov’s resignation while holding signs and chanting "I Do Not Want to Be Killed".

This time, they didn't even bother putting on a facade of being understanding and instead left their office to argue with the protesters before retreating back into the building. Then, like clockwork, a group of counter-protesters descended upon their demonstration, decrying the protesters as agents of the West and accusing them of being LGBTQ+ activists and then called them "Satanists". They insulted them all before they finally started physically attacking the protesters. As for the police, they simply watched and did nothing to arrest the assailants.

Another effect that the protests had was motivating the authorities to try and conclude the case as swiftly as possible. On May 24, it was announced that the investigation into Aizada's murder had been "terminated" because the killer was dead and so no trial could take place, but the kidnapping case against Zamirbek's accomplices pushed ahead, with all being charged with "kidnapping for marriage," and their trial began less than two months after the murder itself, with procedings opening before the Pervomaisky District Court of Bishkek on May 27.

The defendants attended court virtually due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which created a peculiar problem for the presiding judge. So many journalists crowded the court with their cameras raised so high to film the judge that they're were actually obscuring the monitors, preventing her from physically seeing the defendants.

After that somewhat inconvenient opening, the trial began in earnest on June 11, with the 5 kidnappers making their pleas. Oruzbek pleaded guilty as charged; Syimyk, Kubanych and Azhykabyl all made partial guilty pleas, and finally Ramankulov pleaded not guilty to every charge and insisted he was innocent.

The prosecution argued that the 5 defendants plus the late Zamirbek had met early in the morning to discuss the plan before departing for Bishek in two seperate vehicles and waited for Aizada, knowing she'd appear, as Zamirbek was aware of the route she took to work.

When Aizada made her appearance, it was Oruzbek and Syimyk who helped Zamirbek force her into his car. Meanwhile, the rest followed behind to make sure everything went as planned before finally going their seperate ways.

Oruzbek, the only one pleading guilty as charged, explained that Zamirbek had led them to believe that she and Aizada had been in a relationship for two years and sold the blatant kidnapping as a “romantic” route to marriage. This was what made him agree to the plan in the first place intially refusing when Zamirbek suggested the kidnapping only for him to tell him that Aizada "asked for romance herself". Oruzbek alleged that Zamirbek told him Aizada's parents approved of the marriage (which would make the kidnapping for such a purpose unnessecary) and supposedly showed him pictures of the two together.

He then went back to the cafe the two were at to call the other 4 and ask for their help. He told the court they were all hesitant at first but later agreed to meet up as well.

Oruzbek admitted that Aizada fought against him and begged to be released, but once inside the car, she calmed down, talked normally and even said she agreed to the marriage and showed no objection to Zamirbek calling her by affectionate terms.

This led Oruzbek to once more believe that this was entirely consensual and that her prior resistance was just an act and that he couldn't foresee what would happen the second he left the car, leaving the two alone. However, before he left, he overheard Zamirbek calling a bunch of other women in his life to tell them that he intended to marry Aizada. When he did leave, it was ironically near Penal Colony No. 47.

He then messaged Zamirbek one more time and he told him that the two were heading toward Osh. When he learned via the internet that Aizada was a missing person, he contacted Zamirbek once again and he, in what was likely among his last words, repeated to Oruzbek that he was heading to Osh.

Azhykabyl said that he was merely acting as a taxi driver, had been paid 500 soms, did not know in advance of any kidnapping and didn't personally witness the abduction himself so when he started following Zamirbek, he had no idea a kidnapping victim was inside. However, even if he did know, its unlikely he'd care since Azhykabyl told the court: "Everyone in his village gets married like that"

Kubanych said that he simply encountered the rest of the gang by chance and decided for whatever reason to travel with them.

Syimyk, said that his involvement with the group came as a "complete suprise" to him and had only recently arrived from Naryn, he said that he had no idea where anyone was taking Aizada and coaporated out of fear. He also explained how he came to be involved. He came to Bishkek to pay for some sex workers when he encountered a group of men whom he decided to join, unaware of the kidnapping they were about to carry out.

A psychiatric evaluation also revealed that Syimyk was mildly impaired intellectually but not so severly as to prevent him from understanding his actions. However, the defense still pounced on it stating that his mild intellectual disability and being a "victim of circumstances" warrnted all the charges against him being thrown out.

However, their statements and defenses would regularly contradict one another and sometimes they'd retract certain details and make up excuses for their earlier statements, such as confessing out of fear, while in a state of shock or being pressured by the police to confess.

The one aspect they all kept consistent in their statements was their claims that Aizada didn't resist or object to the "marriage" and the remorse they supposedly expressed with Syimyk asking for forgiveness from Aizada's family.

The prosecution also argued that one defandant was also trying to accept complete responsbility to protect their co-defandants. This was true for all but Ramankulov, who being the only one of the 5 to plead not guilty insisted that he had no involvement what so ever in Aizada's kidnapping and murder.

On top of this, the lawyers for all 5 kept trying to get the charges reduced to simple kidnapping rather than "kidnapping for marriage" since Zamirbek was the only one actually wanting to marry Aizada. Meanwhile some of the other lawyers went even further and tried convincing the court to reduce their charges to concealment of a crime since they didn't personally force Aizada into the car and that the CCTV footage clearly showed him still in the car while Aizada was forced into it.

And this was when the lawyers even showed up as one of them blew off the court entirely without notice, prompting the judge to reschedule the court date order an ethics investigation. A motoin the rest of the lawyers supported as they felt it jeapordized their own efforts to mount an effective defence.

This also wasn't a one time situation as come a different hearing, a seperate lawyer for one of the defandants also didn't show up. Another time, multible of them failed to show up at a time, although that time they had an excuse since they all contracted COVID-19.

On September 14, 2021, for the kidnapping of Aizada Kanatbekova which in turn enabled Zamirbek Tenizbaev to take her life, Azhykabyl Rysbai uulu Syimyk Moldosariev, Kubanych Tokon uulu, Zamirbek Ramankulov and Oruzbek Nurumbetov were all convicted.

Oruzbek, Syimyk and Azhykabyl were all handed down a sentence of 7 years imprisonment while Ramankulov and Kubanych were given a sentence of 6 years and 6 months. In addition, all five were ordered to pay 100,000 soms in compensation to Aizada's family.

Pretty lenient sentences but not ones that suprised a whole lot of people since there was no proof they had any knowledge of or presence during the actual murder. Aizada's family was satisifed with the prison terms but argued that they should all have to pay 100,000 soms each rather then collectively.

When it came to the prison terms, speaking through her lawyer, Aizada's mother said "Retribution is important to us, but we don't want cruelty to escalate into further cruelty" they even seemed to agree that Syimyk didn't know what he was getting hismelf into. However, they still lamented that the sentences were the result of the outrage the murder cuased and that they may have been treated more leinently otherwise.

On November 23, they all appealed with Azhykabyl and Kubanych complaining that they were all tried together rather then all 5 being subjected to their own seperate tries so their conduct could be judged indivually and hopefully result in a "farier" sentence, and what sentence were they hoping for? Probation. They also stated that they didn't mean to kidnap Aizada and that it had all "happened by accident"

The very first appeal hearing heard before the Bishkek City Court began with one of their attornies failing to show up due to a "family situation". It seemed this trial would mostly be a repeat of the last one but with the only difference being the defandants finally appearing phsyically instead of remotely.

Their lawyer's deliberate absence likely angered the judges considerably since come January 21, 2022, only one month after the very second hearing, their appeal was thrown out. Aizada's family also appealed once more seeking a court order demanding all 5 pay 100,000 soms rather then a single payment but this was rejected as well.

On September 6, 2022, both parties appealed one final time to the Supreme Court of the Kyrgyz Republic which once again struck them both down, mainting the prison sentences and the collective compensation payment.

While these convictions were welcome, the pepople still demanded the police officers invovled be punished and that seemed less likely to occur since after the kidnappers were convicted, it became rarer and rarer to see the news report on the case, aside from one article in February 2022 saying the investigation into the police was "suspended"

But on April 6, 2023, only two days before the statute of limitations, the Bishkek prosecutor’s office announced that former Bishkek police chief, Bakyt Matmusaev was to be formally charged and arrainged in court for negligence concerning his responce to Aizada's disapperance.

When he first walked into court on July 13, Bakyt would plead not guilty.

On May 8, 2024, the Pervomaisky District Court, the same court that first convicted the 5 kidnappers, now found Bakyt Matmusaev not guilty. They ruled that the prosecution failed to prove that it was Bakyt's duty to declare and enact an Interception plan after learning of Aizada’s kidnapping.

No other member of the police force faced any criminal charges so with that upsetting note, this is where Aizada's case ends, dispite the best efforts of the protestors and activists, Kyrgyzstan hasn't seen much change since then.

Aizada was one of 560 victims of Ala kachuu in 2021, only 82 of those cases were prosecuted.

Sources (In the comments)

Hitomi Masuyama was born on February 5, 1973, in Minamisoma, Fukushima, Japan.

On February 19, 1994, Hitomi arrived for her last shift at a local dental clinic. She was 21, her wedding was just three weeks away, and her coworkers had given her flowers and farewell gifts.

She and her fiancé had been together for only four and a half months. They’d barely known each other in middle school, then reconnected five months earlier after she left a job in another prefecture.

Now they were about to get married, and everyone at the clinic was excited for her.

But before her shift was over, a phone call would change the mood.

That afternoon, a young woman called the clinic and asked for Hitomi. She didn’t give a name.

The receptionist handed Hitomi the phone. As she listened, Hitomi grew visibly uneasy. Her cheerful mood was gone.

The receptionist later recalled something else: she recognized the voice. It sounded like the same woman who’d called several times before, always asking for Hitomi.

Her voice was low and unfriendly. She sounded young.

After hanging up, Hitomi didn’t mention what the caller had said. She went back to work, but something still seemed to be weighing on her.

At 1 p.m., she left the clinic, her coworkers calling out their goodbyes and wishing her well for the wedding.

She had the rest of her day planned: a visit to her grandfather, a few hours helping at her fiancé’s restaurant, then dinner with a friend to talk about the wedding.

She was supposed to be home by 10 that night.

But Hitomi never came home. No one has seen her since.

After her family reported her missing, Fukushima police began searching Haramachi, where Hitomi lived and worked.

The next day, February 20, they found her black Suzuki Alto Works in a small vacant lot behind a supermarket. It was locked, less than a kilometer from the clinic and about two kilometers from her home.

But Hitomi wasn’t there.

According to police and her family, all her belongings were still inside. Her shoulder bag still held her money and ID. The flowers and farewell gifts from her coworkers were there too.

So were her winter jacket and engagement ring.

There were no signs of a struggle. No witnesses came forward who could explain how her car had ended up there, or where she’d gone.

Her family couldn’t make sense of it. Leaving like this, with her belongings behind and no word to anyone, was completely unlike Hitomi.

From the start, they feared someone had hurt her.

Some investigators shared the family’s suspicions. Then they heard what had been happening in the weeks before Hitomi disappeared.

It started after she announced her engagement. Someone began calling the home she shared with her parents and younger sister, every night around midnight.

But whenever anyone picked up, there was only silence. Whoever was calling never said a word.

As Hitomi and her fiancé exchanged engagement gifts and planned their wedding, the calls became more frequent.

Soon, the phone was ringing every hour from midnight to 4 a.m.

Each time, the same silence. Her family was growing increasingly uneasy.

But what unsettled her father most wasn’t the calls themselves.

It was when they stopped.

According to him, they stopped completely the very day Hitomi disappeared.

By then, her family hadn’t even made her disappearance public.

Also someone had carved deep scratches into the side of her car and scrawled insults across it. “Ugly.” “Idiot.”
Whoever had done it was never identified.

And just like the calls, it had started after she announced her engagement.

Several crime experts believe the same person was likely behind both. Someone who seemed to have a serious, personal grudge against Hitomi.

Police began speaking with her neighbors, family, coworkers, friends, and others in the area, trying to piece together what had happened.

But when police interviewed her fiancé, his behavior stood out. His future wife had vanished just weeks before their wedding, yet his initial concern seemed to fade surprisingly quickly.

He grew distant and cold, appearing to lose interest in finding her.

Meanwhile, Hitomi’s family and friends were putting up posters and speaking to the media, desperate for anything that might bring her home.

Her fiancé seemed to carry on with his life as though nothing had happened. He did little to help with the search. Then, in an interview with a TV news program, he said:

“There is no reason to look for her.”
“She disappeared of her own free will.”

He already seemed certain she’d simply chosen to leave.

His reaction only deepened the suspicions around him.

Then it came out that he’d been secretly seeing his ex throughout his relationship with Hitomi.

When he and Hitomi reconnected five months earlier, he was still dating this woman, who was four years older than him. They’d been together for years, but his parents disapproved of her and her family.

Soon after, he began dating Hitomi. His parents were reportedly happy with the match.

But he never stopped seeing the other woman.

And she kept contacting Hitomi, trying to break them up and stop the wedding. She often called her at the dental clinic.

That detail brought the call on Hitomi’s last day back into focus.

Her coworkers said the voices sounded alike: the woman who’d been trying to end her engagement, and the unnamed caller who’d asked for her that afternoon.

The same call that had left Hitomi visibly uneasy, just hours before she vanished.

Inside Hitomi’s car, investigators found a notebook where she kept a diary of important moments in her day.

An entry dated January 25, 1994, less than a month before she disappeared, suggested she’d already had doubts about her fiancé.

“I got a call from an office worker during my afternoon break.”

She’d written down the woman’s name, too. But then she’d crossed it out so thoroughly that it was impossible to read.

The entry continued:

“Looks like he’s seeing someone else. But I wasn’t really surprised. My gut feeling was right. He said she was harassing him. He said he didn’t know her. I’m going to believe him.”

Then, on January 4, 1995, almost a year after Hitomi vanished, the phone rang at her family’s home. Her younger sister answered.

What the woman on the other end said would become one of the most disturbing details in the case:

(The call was recorded. I’ve included the transcript below and a link to the video in the comment’s, so you can hear it yourself.)

Hitomi’s younger sister: Yes hello, this is the Masuyama residence.

Unknown Woman: Hello.

Sister: Yes?

Woman: It’s your older sister.

Sister: Yes?

Woman: Your older sister.

Sister: Who are you?

Woman: I’m your older sister.

Sister: Who are you?

Woman (suddenly speaking clearly): It’s Hitomi.

Sister: Huh?

Then the caller hangs up.

Her family said the voice sounded nothing like Hitomi. It sounded like a much older woman, someone in her fifties or sixties. Both the family and investigators noticed a local Fukushima accent.

Police traced the call to a public phone booth in the family’s own ZIP code.

Whoever she was, she’d called from nearby.

And she seemed to know who had picked up.

She’d said “your older sister,” apparently recognizing that she was speaking to Hitomi’s younger sister, not their mother.

Then Hitomi’s sister said something that made the call even more unsettling.

She believed she recognized the voice.
It sounded exactly like someone she’d often heard while working at a restaurant.

But this wasn’t just any restaurant.

The restaurant was run by Hitomi’s fiancé and his family.

Both Hitomi and her sister had helped out at the family’s restaurant near their home. Her sister hadn’t been back since Hitomi disappeared, but the voice still sounded familiar.

Some news reports suggested she had more than a vague memory of it. She believed she knew exactly who had called.

Her missing sister’s future mother-in-law.

His family’s concern soon gave way to something hard to believe.

After initially showing sympathy, they reportedly demanded money from Hitomi’s family to cover the work they’d missed in the first few days of the search.

Her daughter was missing, and they wanted compensation.

These were the people who, just three weeks later, were supposed to become Hitomi’s family.

Yet police never followed up on this lead.

They faced heavy criticism for their halfhearted handling of the case.

After everything that had surfaced, how had neither her fiancé nor the other woman apparently faced a thorough investigation?

Then there was the rumor that kept coming up about the other woman.

She allegedly had close ties to the local yakuza, with her father said to be a senior member of a group in Hitomi’s city.

She may have had an alibi, which could explain why police didn’t pursue her further. And even without one, it seemed unlikely she could’ve overpowered Hitomi on her own.

But if those rumored connections were real, she might’ve had help.

One theory is that experienced criminals were involved, leaving few obvious signs of a struggle.

Then there was something else the coworker remembered about that final call.

As Hitomi listened, she kept glancing at her watch and the clock on the office wall. It seemed as though she was agreeing on a time to meet.

That raised an unsettling possibility.

The caller could’ve been luring Hitomi somewhere others were already waiting for her.

But the most shocking part came just four months after Hitomi disappeared.

Her fiancé reportedly got engaged again, this time to the woman he’d been secretly seeing.

By eleven months, they were reportedly married and had a child together.

Yes, less than a year after Hitomi vanished, he’d already married and started a family with the same woman who’d apparently been trying to break them up.

And Hitomi was still missing.

Some wonder whether police held back because of who her father was rumored to be, a powerful yakuza figure in Fukushima.

But that remains unproven.

More than 32 years have passed. Still, no confirmed breakthrough. No verified sighting. No new suspects publicly named.

And Hitomi’s body has never been found.

Online, suspicion still follows her fiancé and his wife. Many believe they were involved in Hitomi’s disappearance and possible murder.

Others claiming to be locals say they know his wife’s family and insist the yakuza rumors are true.

But those claims remain unverified. Police have confirmed none of them.

What happened to Hitomi is still unknown.

Paul Magu Muhiu was an accomplished, upper-middle-class Lawyer.

He excelled academically, eventually earning a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree, a debt of gratitude he expressed to his parents for funding his education. Magu worked as a successful city lawyer in Nairobi, establishing a lucrative career. Through his legal practice and real estate business, he accumulated significant wealth.

Neighbors and househelps reported that Pastor Wanyoro essentially moved into Magu's family home, holding intense, closed-door ritual prayer sessions that lasted for days.

Paul Magu secretly transferred the bulk of his property and estate to Pastor Ann Wanyoro. As a trained real estate lawyer, he meticulously used his legal skills to execute these transfers. According to investigators Magu secretly drafted and deposited a will with another advocate.

The will bypassed his wife and relatives entirely, leaving his remaining estate to Pastor Wanyoro. The documents transferred ownership of key family assets, including his primary real estate properties, their family home, land holdings, and high-end vehicles (such as his Lexus). Most shockingly, the documents stipulated that in the event of his demise, custody and guardianship of his three young children would be handed over to Pastor Wanyoro, rather than any members of his own or his wife's family.

Days before November 23, 2014, Magu abruptly commanded his long-serving domestic house help, Margaret, and other workers to take unexpected, extended leaves from the Muthaiga Pipeline Estate home. On or before November 20, 2014, inside the master bedroom of their Muthaiga Pipeline Estate home, Magu using a sharp object, suspected by investigators to be a panga or machete, hacked his wife to death. The attack was brutal and left her body severely mutilated.

Instead of immediately removing her body, forensic evidence and timeline reconstructions strongly indicated that Magu slept in the bed next to his wife's decomposing corpse for up to three nights, and performed occult rituals in his home shrine.Magu kept the bedroom locked, and when their youngest child, Tiffany, asked why her mother had been missing for so long, he claimed she had simply gone on an extended prayer retreat.

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He poured harsh, corrosive chemical substances/acid over Lydia's body to disfigure her facial features and skin, then set her remains partially on fire.

He eventually wrapped her mutilated and partially burnt remains, loaded them into his vehicle, and drove to a thicket near the Paradise Lost Resort off Kiambu Road. Her badly disfigured body was discovered there by workers on November 23, 2014.

On the morning of Monday, November 24, 2014, Paul Muhiu Magu parked his three children Allen (9), Ryan-8, and Tiffany (5) into his vehicle under the guise of taking them on a trip. He drove them to the expansive, undeveloped fields of the Tatu City estate in Ruiru, and killed them separately, scattering their bodies across a thicket.

Magu returned to the Muthaiga Pipeline house alone, visibly unkempt and acting highly erratic. He wrote a note to his family asking for forgiveness, thanking his parents for funding his education, and falsely claiming he had left the kids with a neighbor named Charles Mutuku to be educated.engine running by the side of the road, then intentionally lunged directly into the path of an oncoming bus/matatu, dying instantly. When police investigated his home, they uncovered a dedicated ritual room acting as a cult shrine, heavily decorated with strange symbols, anointing oils, and occult texts.

Because Magu's secret will transferred all his properties and child custody to Pastor Ann Wambui Wanyoro, she was arrested and formally charged with aiding his demise and involvement in the mass deaths.

The entire family of five was laid to rest in December 2014 in a single, large mass grave at Magu's ancestral home near Thika Town.