Aigali Supugaliev, a 63-year-old man from Kazakhstan, almost gave his relatives a heart attack when he returned home two months after they had buried his body. And while stories of people showing up after being presumed dead by their families have made news headlines before, Aigali’s one is particularly bizarre because his death had been confirmed by a DNA test.

It all started on July 9, when Aigali Supugaliev’s relatives reported him missing from his village of Tomarly, in Kazakhstan. They had no idea that the unmarried man had been offered a four-month job on a distant farm, as he had not bothered to inform them about it, so when a decomposed body was discovered near his house, everyone feared the worse. The corpse was reportedly in such a bad state that Aigali’s family couldn’t identify it by physical traits, so a DNA test was commissioned. Believe it or not, the test showed that there was a 99.29% probability (the highest this kind of test can give) that the discovered body was that of Supugaliev, so an official death certificate was issued, and the man’s brother organized a funeral.

Photo: qimono/Pixabay

The body that everyone was convinced was Aigali’s was buried in the Zhuldyz district of Atyrau, following a Muslim ceremony, but two months later, “the dead man” returned.

“When Aigali came home alive and healthy, my daughter Saule, seeing her ‘dead’ uncle, almost collapsed with a heart attack,” Esengali, the man’s brother, told local reporters. “The DNA analysis had confirmed this was my brother.  We believed the results and conducted all the funeral and memorial rites. I spent so much money on it. But it is not even about the money. Who have we buried? Maybe his relatives are looking for this person.”

Supugaliev’s relatives have declared themselves overjoyed to have him back alive and well, but they have not forgotten about the DNA test, and plan to sue the experts who conducted it.

 

However, Akmaral Zhubatyrova, who performed the test, defended herself saying that one cannot rely on the 99.29% probability to confirm a person’s death.

“It is impossible to state unequivocally that this is the body of a person, relying only on the results of the DNA examination,” Zhubatyrova told the media. “We should not forget about the remaining 0.08 per cent.”

It’s unclear how hard it’s going to be for Aigali Supugaliev to legally return among the living – paperwork and all – but in the meantime he was happy to pose with the plaque that his relatives were getting ready to place on his gravestone.