Askat Zhetigen was detained in March 2024 and charged under two articles: Article 278 (calls for mass disorder) and Article 327 (public calls to seize power). On March 20, 2024, the Pervomaisky District Court in Bishkek ordered that he be remanded in custody.

On July 1, 2024, the Sverdlovsky District Court in Bishkek acquitted him under Article 278 but found him guilty under Article 327 and sentenced him to three years in prison. On October 17, 2024, the Bishkek City Court upheld the sentence. On March 18, 2025, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction, making the sentence final.

According to Abdirasulova, following his detention, Zhetigen told his lawyer and later the court that he had been subjected to torture by officers of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS).

«On April 12, 2024, the Military Prosecutor’s Office, for some reason, referred the torture complaint not for its own investigation, but for an internal check by the SCNS’s Internal Security Service — that is, to the same agency whose officers were the subject of the complaint. On July 26, 2024, the prosecutor’s office issued a decision refusing to open a criminal case. Since then, Askat and his lawyer have repeatedly appealed the prosecutor’s decisions refusing to open a case. Throughout his time in pretrial detention and prison, not a single prosecutor visited him or investigated the circumstances surrounding the alleged torture,»

Gulshaiyr Abdirasulova added.