Rakhat Aliyev arrested in Vienna

Aliyev's arrest warrant was issued in Austria on May 19. Aliyev's representative Manfred Aynedter told the Austrian agency APA that the ex-diplomat has turned himself into the police and intends to cooperate with law enforcement. Media reported that Aliyev recently resided in Malta under the name of his new wife. Opposition leader and former government official Altynbek Sarsenbayev was kidnapped and shot dead together with his driver and bodyguard in the city of Almaty in February 2006 in what his supporters believe was a politically motivated crime. A court found Yerzhan Utembayev, the former chief of staff of the upper house of parliament, guilty of masterminding the killing and sentenced him to 20 years in jail later in 2006. Ten other men were also convicted in connection with the crime. In December, a top court overturned the verdict against Utembayev and ordered a retrial. The ruling came after one of those convicted in the original case appealed to the Supreme Court in 2012, claiming that the killings were in fact ordered by Alnur Musayev, former head of the National Security Committee, and Rakhat Aliyev, the erstwhile son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbayev and also a former deputy head of the security services. Before falling definitively from grace, Aliyev served as his country's envoy to Austria. In 2008 Rakhat Aliyev was sentenced in absentia to a total of 40 years in prison for preparing to seize power and organizing a criminal group involved in kidnappings. In June 2011 Vienna court refused to extradite R. Aliyev to Kazakhstan.