‘No normal suicide’ – Aliyev lawyer

Rakhat Aliyev’s chief legal representative described the former Kazakh diplomat as having been motivated to fight murder charges against him, and confident that he would be declared innocent, in his last conversation shortly before he was found dead in his cell in an Austrian prison – ostensibly by suicide.

Aliyev, 52, had fled to Malta in 2010 after Austrian prosecutors started investigating a murder charge against him.

Lawyer Klaus Ainedter was one of the last persons to speak to him. “He was highly motivated to fight the indictment and strongly believed that he would be set free,” Ainedter told MaltaToday.

While he would not speculate on the cause of death due to the ongoing investigations – a second autopsy is to be held in the coming days – Ainedter said that Austrian public opinion was “clear in that they do not believe this was a normal suicide”.

Aliyev turned himself in to face charges on the murder of two Nurbank bankers in Astana, Kazakhstan after he was tried in absentia by a Kazakh court and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Having served his father-in-law, dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev, as ambassador in Vienna in 2008, the Austrian government refused to extradite Aliyev. He was later forcibly divorced from his wife, Dariga, daughter of Nazarbayev and subsequently married an employee, Elnara Shorazova, to benefit from her Austrian passport and be able to move across the EU.

Ainedter pointed out that not two hours after Aliyev’s death, the prison authorities had already announced that he had killed himself in his cell. “If you are professional and believe in a legal system, you will wait until you have the facts in black on white before issuing a statement.” he said.

“The only thing the defence is requesting are normal and reasonable investigations into the circumstances surrounding his death.”

Asked what would become of Aliyev’s considerable fortune – the former deputy head of the Kazakh security service had amassed millions and was wanted on a money-laundering probe by German investigators – Ainedter said it was too early to be discussing this.

“The priority is to first of all, find out what happened and secondly to prevent the body being repatriated to Kazakhstan, as his wife wishes him to be buried in Vienna.”

Aliyev claimed to be the victim of an international harassment campaign directly financed by former father-in-law Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

He availed himself of his Schengen rights through his marriage to naturalised Austrian citizen Shorazova, and then settled in Malta under the assumed surname of Shoraz. In April 2013, his Austrian passport was repealed over irregularities in its issuing by the ministry of the interior.

In 2012, former Kazakh prime minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin and his bodyguards Satzhan Ibraev and Pyotr Afanasenko instituted challenge proceedings against the Maltese police, demanding that Aliyev be investigated for “crimes against humanity”.

The two men claimed to have been tortured on Aliyev’s orders in 2001, on occasion being personally beaten by him in order to extract a false confession that their boss, Kazhegeldin, had been plotting a coup against Nazarbayev.

The Attorney General’s office had declined to prosecute, however, saying that the police had no jurisdiction to investigate crimes against humanity.