Kazakhstan on Monday opened a trial against a former economy minister accused of killing his wife in a restaurant -- a case that has shocked the Central Asian country, where domestic violence is rarely discussed in public.

Kuandyk Bishimbayev -- a 43-year-old former aide to autocrat Nursultan Nazarbayev -- is accused of beating his partner Saltanat Nukenova to death last year.

His high-profile trial opened in the capital, but journalists were not allowed in the courtroom, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

Bishimbayev faces up to 15 years in prison for killing 31-year-old Nukenova in a case that has shone the spotlight on violence against women.

The case of a high-profile official going on such a trial has shocked authoritarian and largely patriarchal Kazakhstan.

Female prosecutor Azhan Aymaganova described in court how Bishimbayev killed Nukenova in a VIP-hall of a central Astana restaurant, according to Kazakh news agencies.

She said Bishimbayev "immediately began to show aggression" in his relationship with Nukenova and "forbade her to communicate and meet with her relatives and friends, controlled all her phone calls and movements."

She said the couple had been drinking in the restaurant and that "during the argument Nukenova told Bishimbayev that she was tired of the relationship and that she had decided to leave him."

The prosecutor said he then began punching her in the head before Nukenova, fearing for her life, locked herself in the toilet. Around dawn, Bishimbayev broke the door down and beat her to death.

Bishimbayev has pleaded not guilty.

He was already sentenced to 10 years in prison for corruption in 2018 but was freed a year later after an amnesty.

The case has led to a renewed campaign for women's safety in Kazakhstan, where the UN estimated that around 400 women a year are killed in femicides.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called on authorities to strengthen legal mechanisms to punish domestic violence after the Bishimbayev case.

But feminist organisations have urged the government to do more.