Rakhat Aliyev fears kidnapping

Former Kazakhstan ambassador to Austria Rakhat Aliyev said in an interview to the European media that he was ready to appear in Austrian court but feared of a possible kidnapping. That’s why Aliyev, living in Malta, photographed everyone he suspected of following him and stored the images on his hard drive, Malta Today reports. Aliyev recently published a new edition of his autobiography called Crime-scene Austria where he wrote that he remained persecuted by lawyers employed by Kazakhstan. Aliyev refuted the accusations in the media of illegally buying Maltese residence permit with a support from Malta’s Foreign Minister Tonio Borg. The Ministry also refuted this information. “Aliyev received residence permit from tye Austrian government. He is married to a EU citizen and has the freedom of movement and residence,” the Ministry said. Kazakhstan General Prosecutor’s office told Tengrinews.kz that Austrian law-enforcement authorities were investigating the case of kidnapping and murder of Nurbank’s top managers and several other crimes allegedly related to Aliyev. Earlier the lawyer of the families of the murdered managers Gabriel Lansky said at a press-conference in Almaty that the Superior Land Court of Vienna did not find any political grounds in the criminal actions against Aliyev. Lansky stressed that the Austrian court considered results of the investigation in Kazakhstan and the sentence pronounced in Kazakhstan on the Nurbank case (kidnapping and murder of two top managers) reasonable and the testimony of Armangul Kapashea (the widow of Zholdas Timraliyev) and Abilmazhen Galimov (former chairman of Nurbank) trustworthy. According to the lawyer, the results of the investigation made by Vienna's prosecutors not only confirm but also increased the suspicions against Aliyev. The ex-ambassador was sentenced in absence in Kazakhstan for several grave crimes and the new accusations of murder of Nurbank managers Zhodas Timraliyev and Aibar Khassenov were presented later. He was sentenced to imprisonment and put on the wanted list.