Rustam Kiknadze

Rustam Musadinovich Kiknadze (; born 21 December 1980) is a Kazakhstani serial killer and rapist who murdered three women over twenty days in the Jambyl Region in 2020. His case garnered great controversy among locals, as he was a known violent offender who had previous convictions for a double murder and raping underage children, in addition to his relatively lenient sentence of 26 years for his latest killings.

Initial crimes Nothing is known of Kiknadze's life prior to his first major crimes, aside that he was born in 1980 an unspecified area of the Jambyl Region.

In 2004, he raped and killed two women, burning their bodies post-mortem, but was swiftly arrested and put on trial. For reasons unclear, he was acquitted of the rape charge and tried only for the murders, for which he was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment by the Jambyl Regional Court.

On May 21, 2021, Kiknadze's trial for the three murders and the related crimes began in the Jambyl District Court. After an eleven-day long trial, Kiknadze was found guilty on all counts - however, despite the prosecutors requesting a full life term due to the brutality of his crimes, the court instead sentenced him to 26 years imprisonment instead. This decision was met with heavy criticism from the victims' family members, one of whom later released a statement saying that her faith in the Kazakhstani justice system was lost and that she would appeal the decision.