[mwfunk]

Yes, he did choose to violate it, in the sense that waiting until you've got 24 hours left on a visa to leave is just straight up bananapants crazy, especially when you are in a place where all sorts of things can happen that could delay your exit, and the legal system is unusually unpredictable (and the consequences could be unusually bad for you).

Accepting a certain level of risk that something bad might happen is absolutely equivalent (in terms of personal responsibility) to choosing to make that thing happen.

Example: drunk driving is dangerous. If you've had a lot to drink, and you get in a car to drive someplace, and you get in an accident, you take additional responsibility for that accident because you chose to increase risk above a certain common-sense level that everyone is aware of. Regardless of whether or not the accident would have happened without drunk driving, the drunk driver will be held accountable in a way that they would not have otherwise.

Waiting until you've got 24 hours left on your visa to leave Kazakhstan is so far beyond any common-sense threshold of acceptable risk (that pretty much any rational adult would be cognizant of) that it is equivalent to choosing this fate.

[peeters]

I think the point is, it's only a stupid risk if you're dealing with stupid systems. When all the actors involved see his transgression for what it actually is (instead of just yelling BUT THE RULEZ) it's apparently not as big of a risk.

[coldtea]

>Yes, he did choose to violate it, in the sense that waiting until you've got 24 hours left on a visa to leave is just straight up bananapants crazy, especially when you are in a place where all sorts of things can happen that could delay your exit, and the legal system is unusually unpredictable (and the consequences could be unusually bad for you).

As far as risks people take go, this one is pretty inconsequential -- even in the worst case scenario, which would be a couple months in some jail.