Prison psychologist suspects Aliyev was murdered in Austrian jail

The mysterious death of Kazakh multimillionaire exile Rakhat Aliyev is attracting the attention of Kazakh investigators over a claim that an Austrian prison guard could have murdered him.

Aliyev had left Malta, his haven for three years after Austria opened a criminal investigation into his role in a double murder, to acquire citizenship in Cyprus. He finally gave himself up to Austrian prosecutors, where he was placed in preventive custody in an Austrian jail. He was later found dead after hanging himself.

READ MORE MaltaToday’s coverage on Rakhat Aliyev’s exile in Malta

But new allegations about the death of the former son-in-law of Kazakhstan’s president, have emerged. A former prison psychologist told Austrian radio Ö1 that he believes a prison officer was responsible for Aliyev’s death.

The allegation was dismissed as ‘absurd’ by the Austrian justice ministry, but Aliyev’s family say they were persecuted by the Nazarbayev regime and feared his assassination.

The wealthy ex-diplomat – he was stopped of immunity in 2008 when found guilty by a Kazakh court in absentia – was found hanged in his Vienna prison cell in February 2015 just before he was due to testify in a separate extortion trial.

Former prison psychiatrist Stefan Zechner told Ö1 radio that Aliyev had felt threatened in prison, but that he had not observed that he had any signs of mental illness or suicidal intentions. “At the time, I reported to the police that suicide should be excluded from a professional psychiatric point of view,” Zechner said. He added that he had voiced his suspicions that a prison officer was involved.

Justice ministry spokesperson Christian Pilnacek told Ö1 that he was stunned by Zechner’s allegations, saying that in the fortnight before he died he had not even spoken to Aliyev. “He just saw him across the hallway and thought he looked happy, I don’t think you can call that a diagnosis.”

Pilnacek said the investigation into Aliyev’s death had examined video surveillance from the prison hallway and cell door and had excluded the involvement of prison officers in his death.

In Kazakhstan, where Aliyev was wanted to serve 20 years in jail for the murder of two Nurbank bankers, the General Prosecutor’s Office said it was interested in determining the circumstances surrounding Aliyev’s death.