Two former bodyguards who allege they were personally tortured by millionaire Kazakh exile Rakhat Aliyev have again called on the Maltese police to investigate him.

Speaking at a public hearing in Valletta yesterday organised by human rights NGO Aditus, Satzhan Ibraev and Pytor Afanasenko claimed that Mr Aliyev falsely accused them of plotting a coup in 1997 and personally beat them while they were handcuffed.

They also alleged that he ordered further torture of them while they were detained and subjected their families to intimidation.

Mr Aliyev has lived in Malta since 2010. He said through his lawyer yesterday that the bodyguards were being forced by the Kazakh state to run a systematic smear campaign against him to avert their own persecution.

Aditus director Neil Falzon said yesterday that the foundation was not taking sides in the dispute, but the Maltese police were duty bound to investigate due to Mr Aliyev’s permanent residence on the island.

“We voice Mr Ibraev and Mr Afanasenko’s repeated and ignored requests for the Malta police to immediately initiate a criminal investigation in order to establish whether torture did occur, who the perpetrator was, and, if possible, bring the perpetrator to justice,” Dr Falzon said. The human rights lawyer noted that torture was prohibited by Article 139(A) of the Maltese Criminal Code, as well as several international conventions that Malta was bound by.

Mr Ibraev and Mr Afanasenko have doggedly pursued legal action against Mr Aliyev in several jurisdictions over the past few years.

Last May, a magistrate ruled that Malta did have jurisdiction over Mr Aliyev but deemed that the acts indicated by the complainants did not constitute crimes against humanity.

Later that month, the aggrieved pair filed a new criminal complaint to Police Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit purely restricted to acts of torture.

Because the Maltese courts have legal jurisdiction over any permanent resident of the island in torture cases, regardless of where the torture happened, the police were obliged to investigate Mr Aliyev, Dr Falzon insisted.

The complainants followed up their police report last May with letters in June, July and this month, but no feedback from the Police Commissioner beyond acknowledgements has been forthcoming.

They are willing to file a legal challenge against the Police Commissioner under Article 541 of the Criminal Code to force him to act if necessary.

Rozlana Taukina, an independent Kazakh reporter and representative of the NGO Journalists in Danger, told yesterday’s public hearing that much evidence had since been unearthed to show the coup allegations against the bodyguards were completely fabricated.

Mr Aliyev formerly served as Kazakhstan’s first deputy foreign minister and deputy head of the Kazakh secret service.

He married the daughter of long-ruling President Nursultan Nazarbayev and acquired a huge fortune through a sugar and media empire.

However, he fell out with his autocratic father-in-law after declaring himself a presidential candidate and was sent to Austria as Ambassador in 2007.

He has since divorced from his wife and been sentenced in absentia by a Kazakh court to 40 years in jail on murder and coup plotting charges.

Speaking through his lawyer yesterday, Mr Aliyev reiterated a claim he had previously made in this newspaper that his life and that of his family were in danger from the Kazakh regime, and that Kazakh secret service agents were monitoring his movements.

Asked yesterday if they also believed President Nazarbayev was also guilty of human rights abuses, Mr Ibraev and Mr Afanasenko replied he was, but he had not personally been involved in their torture so he was not their main priority.