Sri Lanka, May 3 -- The trial of a former Kazakhstan minister charged with beating his wife to death has become the talking point across the nation, with some seeing it as a litmus test of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's promise to build a fairer, more equitable society.

Saltanat Nukenova, 31, was found dead last November in a restaurant owned by a relative of her husband Kuandyk Bishimbayev, where the couple had spent almost a whole day and the previous night. She had been unconscious for hours.

In a recent hearing, the court was shown 8-hour-long footage of 44-year-old Kuandyk Bishimbayev, a former economy minister, beating his wife Saltanat Nukenova. The surveillance footage shows Bishimbayev kicking and punching the 31-year-old re...