Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/269668
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 23 FEBRUARY 2014 9 MATTHEW VELLA THE Criminal Court has issued a freezing order on the assets owned by Kazakh exile Rakhat Aliyev, in the first confirmed action that the em- battled millionaire was being investi- gated over money laundering. The freezing order was issued against Aliyev, 52, and his Austrian wife Elnara Shorazova, and a host of companies he is connected to. The freezing order has been com- municated to Banif Bank and Bank of Valletta, as well as the inland reve- nue and VAT departments, the pub- lic registry and the financial services authority, Ganado Trustees & Fidu- ciaries and Iuris Fiduciaries. The order prohibits Aliyev and his wife Elnara Shorazova, and the com- panies mentioned, from transferring or otherwise disposing of any mov- able or immovable property. Aliyev, formerly the son-in- law of Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev and deputy head of the Kazakh secret service, is also being investigated by Austrian prosecu- tors on the murder of two bankers in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 2008. The Maltese money laundering investi- gations only add to similar investiga- tions in Krefeld, Germany. Austrian connections According to the freezing order, Aliyev is also connected to two companies set up with an address at Pendergardens, in St Julian's – Bongu Media Malta and Malta Press Agency. Malta Press Agency Ltd is owned by Liliya Rakhmatullina, who is a director on another company A.V. Maximus Holding AG in Vienna. This company already features in money laundering investigations in Germany, as having been used as a channel for illegal monies to flow to subsidiaries Armoreal GmbH and S.T.A.R.T. Managementconsulting GmbH. Bongu Media Malta is then owned by Kathleen Narodetsky, while her husband and journalist Alexander Narodetsky owns a 1% sharehold- ing – both are based in Leeds, UK. Narodestky was once a director of the United States Congress funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Kiev (known as Radio Svoboda), in the Ukraine. Trusts connected to Aliyev Another company whose assets have been frozen are Olympic Yacht- ing Limited – possibly used as the owner of his personal yacht – whose shareholder is Ganado Trustees & Fiduciaries. Other companies are AJ Trust, Sydney Trust, and Athina Trust of Malta; and Acquarius Trust Com- pany Limited and Aurelius Holdings Limited of Gibraltar; and EDS Hold- ings Ltds and Crimson Limited. Investigation In 2013, complaints submitted to both the Viennese prosecutor and the Maltese police, seen for the first time by MaltaToday, revealed a net- work of companies connected to Ali- yev. According to Austrian lawyers Lansky Ganzger Partner, the money was laundered from alleged criminal activity, but MaltaToday cannot sub- stantiate this claim. The lawyers mapped out a complex network of transaction flows: in the first step, money was fed via two off- shore companies, AV Maximus SA and Argocom Ltd into another com- pany, A.V. Maximus Holding AG. That money was then channelled into subsidiaries Armoreal GmbH and S.T.A.R.T. Managementconsult- ing GmbH. In the second step, loans were granted between the subsidiaries, with large amounts going to the Ger- man company Metallwerke Bender Rheinland. In the third step, the money flowed back to A.V. Maximus SA or, via A.V. Maximus Holding AG, to Mal- tese and Caribbean enterprises. The Austrian A.V. Maximus Hold- ing was owned by a Maltese compa- ny, A & P Power Ltd, which was itself owned by A + P Power Holdings Ltd, registered in the Caribbean island of Nevis. A & P Power Ltd, whose official purpose was indicated as render- ing aeronautics services, was used by Shorazova to transfer the sum of €2.4 million from Austria to Malta. In 2009 it had assets of just €300, in- curring a loss of €2,100 in 2010. Now seated at the address of Joseph Giglio's law firm, A & P Power has been renamed Zurich Asset Man- agement Ltd. Berlin lawyers Danckert Spiller Richter Bärlein, acting on behalf of the Kazakh ministry of justice, also filed its own report to the Maltese Attorney General. In their dossier, DSRB claimed that Aliyev shifted to Malta over €100 million in alleged "criminal gains" during his time as deputy head of the Kazakh secret service. Again, MaltaToday has been un- able to substantiate these allegations, although they have not been rebut- ted by Maltese investigators so far. TWO Kazakh nationals have made a renewed police challenge, to ask the Maltese law courts to investigate their accusations of torture against Kazakh exile Rakhat Aliyev, who re- sides in Malta. Despite repeated requests, the police have so far refused to inves- tigate complaints by former body- guards Satzhev Ibraev and Pyotr Afanasenko. The two men claim they were tortured on order of Ali- yev in 2001, and personally beaten by him, to extract a false confession that their boss, former prime min- ister Akezhan Kazageldin, was plot- ting a coup against Aliyev's father- in-law, Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev. This is the second challenge to the courts after the Attorney General's office said that the police had no jurisdiction to investigate "crimes against humanity". The two bodyguards have filed a new challenge, reiterating that al- though they made four requests to Peter Paul Zammit to investigate their torture complaint, the Com- missioner of Police did not take any action. Their lawyer says that Article 139A of the Criminal Code is clear about what torture is. "Any public official who, in their official capacity, knowingly inflicts physical or mental pain and suffer- ing for the purpose of obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, is liable to a imprison- ment of five to nine years. "Article 139A was introduced in the Criminal Code in 1990, when Malta ratified 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 Attor- ney General in his opposition against the previous complaint." The CAT states that an act of tor- ture is any act by which sever pain or suffering is intentionally inflicted on a person to obtain a confession, or punishing him for an act he or a third person is committed or suspect of having committed. Ibraev and Afanasenko have pre- sented sworn affidavits claiming they were imprisoned for over four months in "inhumane conditions", threatened with violence and death. "They threatened to arrest my wife and inflict violence on her. They threatened to pursue my children and close relative. Furthermore, the investigators and operatives did not conceal that they were acting on personal orders from Rakhat Ali- yev, who had instructed them to do whatever was necessary to extract a confession from me that would allow a warrant for the arrest of Akezhan Kahegeldin," Ibraev says. Afanasenko also claims in his af- fidavit that Aliyev told him that if he didn't testify that Kazhegelding was planning a coup, "my daughters [would] be pumped full of drugs and raped." Their lawyer said that the Conven- tion Against Torture obliges Malta to take any necessary steps against individuals who commit acts of tor- ture in other countries, if they are permanent residents in Malta. Aliyev, 52, has been living in Malta since 2010, availing himself of the right of free movement across the EU as the spouse of Austrian citizen Elnara Shorazova. Although a court has declared that he is "permanent resident", Aliyev has applied for nat- uralisation in Cyprus, as this news- paper previously revealed. "The fact that the Commissioner of Police is not taking action on these complaints is prejudicing the op- portunity that Aliyev faces a court of justice on these accusations, because without him being accused before the Maltese courts, he can abscond these accusations," the lawyer said. Aliyev was living in Austria as the Kazakh ambassador to OSCE, before falling out with his father-in-law, the dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev, and being forcibly divorced from his daughter. In 2008 he was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment in absen- tia by a Kazakh court over the mur- der of two bankers. Austria refused to extradite him. Instead it opened its own criminal investigations. Aliyev has denied the allegations of torture, claiming the two body- guards are being forced to run "a systematic smear campaign" against him. Aliyev also claims that Kazakh secret agents are in Malta to moni- tor 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. 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. Aliyev's assets frozen by court order Bodyguards ask courts to force Aliyev torture investigation Bodyguards Satzhev Ibraev and Pyotr Afanasenko (centre and right) have been in Malta to insist that the courts force the Maltese police to investigate their torture complaints against Rakhat Aliyev Rakhat Aliyev, formerly the son-in-law of Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev, is also being investigated by Austrian prosecutors on the murder of two bankers in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 2008 The freezing order prohibits Kazakh exile Rakhat Aliyev from transferring or otherwise disposing and movable or immovable property