Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/204636
News maltatoday, Sunday, 3 November 2013 2013 Police keep ignoring requests to investigate Rakhat Aliyev Matthew Vella Two Kazakhi nationals requesting that the police investigate their accusations of torture against Rakhat Aliyev, who resides in Malta, are still waiting for an answer from Commissioner of Police, Peter Paul Zammit. Despite repeated requests, the police have so far refused to investigate complaints by former bodyguards Satzhev Ibraev and Pyotr Afanasenko. The two men, who were in Malta earlier this week, claim they were tortured on order of Aliyev in 2001, and personally beaten by him, to extract a false confession that their boss, former prime minister Akezhan Kazageldin, was plotting a coup against Aliyev's father-in-law, Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev. While the police claimed they had no jurisdiction on multimillionaire exile Aliyev, 51, the Maltese courts have also upheld the Attorney General's view that the police could not investigate the allegations. The two bodyguards have since filed a new complaint, on 27 May, asking Peter Paul Zammit to investigate their torture complaint, as laid down in Article 139A of the Criminal Code, which deals with any acts of torture, including those "for the purpose of obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession." Their lawyer, Cedric Mifsud, is insisting the police are obliged to investigate the bodyguards' complaints Rakhat Aliyev on the basis of the provisions relating to torture in Malta's criminal code. "Malta is a signatory to the Convention Against Torture which lays an obligation on member states to prosecute torture, even if committed outside Malta. There are no issues of jurisdiction or retroactivity as claimed by the Attorney General in his opposition against the previous complaint. "Although the complaint was filed in May this year, we have not yet heard from the police commissioner. We hope to receive some feedback soon. If not they will reserve the right to file a police challenge once again." Aliyev has been living in Malta since 2010, after the Austrian government opened a criminal investigation into the alleged murder of two bankers from state-owned bank Nurbank. Aliyev was living in Austria as the Kazakh ambassador to OSCE, be- fore falling out with his father-in-law and being forcibly divorced from his daughter. Aliyev was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment in absentia by a Kazakh court, but Austria has refused to extradite him. Through his marriage to Elnara Shorazova, naturalized as an Austrian citizen, Aliyev obtained freedom of movement across the EU. But he has been unable to escape scrutiny: an Austrian prosecutor has questioned him in the Maltese courts on the double murder investigation; and lawyers from Germany and Austria have supplied their national authorities with details of an alleged money laundering network. This week, Aliyev – a surgeon who married Nazarbayev's daughter to become a powerful media tycoon and deputy chief of the Kazakh secret service – spoke out through his lawyer Joseph Giglio in claiming that bodyguards Ibraev and Afanasenko were, like him, victims of the regime in Kazakhstan. They have refused this characterization: "Aliyev should stop from making false claims that my clients form part of a conspiracy," Mifsud said. "They are simply seeking justice for the heinous crimes he orchestrated." The two bodyguards were hosted by human rights organization Aditus this week to give a public hearing on the torture allegations and the state of democracy in Kazakhstan. Present in the audience were members of the police, as well as a public relations executive scouting the event on behalf of Maltese associates of Aliyev. On his part, Aliyev has denied the allegations of torture, claiming that the two bodyguards are being forced to run "a systematic smear campaign" against him to avert their own persecution. "They will only continue to live for as long as they attack me, and if they choose to follow their conscience by stopping these baseless allegations against me, then the regime will kill them as well. They know this, I know this and everyone else who knows dictator Nazarbayev knows this too," Aliyev said. Aliyev claims that Kazakh secret agents are in Malta to monitor his movements, and possibly kill him and his family. "The Kazakh secret service has long been trying to influence the Maltese courts, the Attorney General and the police force," he said, although the multimillionaire exile has found little hindrance in obtaining passage to Malta. In 2010, an Interpol warning was shrugged off when he obtained permanent residence – his then lawyer, Pio Vassallo, charged him an exorbitant €150,000 fee for this service alone, before the two men fell out and filed lawsuits against each other. Under former police commissioner John Rizzo, four complaints to have the torture allegations investigated were not taken up, and the Attorney General has backed up the police so far. The bodyguards' lawyers say that even though the acts of torture were committed in Kazakhstan, the Maltese courts still have jurisdiction over such a case, and that the police is obliged to investigate and prosecuted. "There is no issue of jurisdiction because permanent residence [in Malta] has now been defined in the case concerning crimes against humanity." Four complaints – on 27 May, 14 June, 25 July, and 14 October 2013 – to the police have so far gone unacknowledged. "If the situation is to remain the same then the complainants will have no alternative but to file another challenge against the Police Commissioner," the lawyers said.