On 18 July 2016, Ruslan Kulikbayev, a 26-year-old Salafi jihadist and ex-convict, shot and killed 10 people—8 police officers and 2 civilians—in the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan before being apprehended in a chase and shootout with law enforcement.
At 3:52 a.m. local time Ruslan Kulikbayev, armed with a handgun, committed his first murder by shooting an alleged Uzbek prostitute in a taxicab.
At around 11:00 a.m. local time, Kulikbayev, armed with an MCM semi-automatic handgun, shot and killed a policeman outside of the Almaty police station and stole his weapon, an automatic AKS-74U assault rifle.
[7] After shooting the two officers, Kulikbayev hijacked a second car, but was spotted and chased by responding police vehicles as he tried to flee.
In the days following the Almaty shootings, Kazakh police arrested and charged four more individuals with suspected connections to the attack.
The first led to a 3-year suspended imprisonment for robbery with violence imposed on him by the Enbekshi District Court of Shymkent on 27 August 2010.
[15] It was determined that he ambushed a jewelry saleswoman near her home in July 2010, beating her and taking away her purse with 115,000 tenge (≈US$5,500) and a mobile phone.
[16] The second time the police seized a Nagant M1895 with ammunition and a suppressor from him, presumably found by Kulikbayev near a local railway station in Taraz on 14 February 2012, that led to his 3-year and 6-month prison sentence for illegal acquisition and possession of firearms enhanced by recidivism by the Kyzylorda Municipal Court on 8 May 2012.
[18] His marriage to Ayaylym Umbetkulova, a native of Yntymak, Ile District began in 2010 and produced a son and a daughter.
[14][19] By the words of his wife, he turned from an exemplary family man to a deeply religious person after the release, and wanted her to wear a hijab, but she refused.
[14] Kulikbayev had originally planned to kill judges and prosecutors at the Almaty District Court to get revenge on law enforcement structures for his previous imprisonment, as reported by Minister of Internal Affairs Kalmukhanbet Kassymov.
During the trial proceedings, Kulikbayev was reportedly very belligerent and uncooperative, at one point allegedly flipping over and "tossing" a table at an investigator despite being handcuffed.
[24] Kazakh PM Mäulen Äşimbaev stated after the verdict that, although he considered Kulikbayev's sentence "fair", he did not believe that he would ever be executed, as Kazakhstan had instituted a moratorium on the death penalty since 2003.