Two men who claimed they were tortured by Kazakh millionaire Rakhat Aliyev yesterday challenged the Police Commissioner for a second time to investigate the allegations.
The men, former bodyguards of Kazakh Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin, claimed that Mr Aliyev – who was now using his wife’s surname of Shoraz – was responsible for their illegal detention and torture during the administration of his father-in-law, the former Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev.
They claim he personally had them arrested and tortured in a bid to extract a false statement against their former boss. Pyotr Afanasenko and Satzhan Ibraev have been unsuccessfully pursuing Mr Aliyev for years in Austria and now in Malta – where he moved in 2010 – arguing that the Police Commissioner should investigate.
The main issue is whether or not Mr Aliyev is a permanent resident of Malta. Deputy Attorney General Donnatella Frendo Dimech insisted yesterday that he was not. She added that he was not in Malta and had left in August of last year.
The bodyguards’ lawyer Cedric Mifsud, on the other hand, argued that notwithstanding his status on the island, he owned “incredible” amounts of property in Malta and lived here.
He said he owned property in Qui-si-sana in Sliema, Mellieħa, Pender Gardens, Fort Cambridge and another in St Julian’s.
Dr Mifsud remarked that they had formally filed their challenge last May only to find out in March this year that he left in August.
Dr Frendo Dimech said that she was perplexed by Dr Mifsud’s insinuation that the police aided and abetted Mr Aliyev.
If the police could have investigated they would have without delay
“If they could have investigated they would have without delay,” she said, insisting that the Police Commissioner was precluded by law from even speaking to Mr Aliyev. The first attempt to get the Police Commissioner to investigate Mr Aliyev failed after Magistrate Antonio Mizzi, who has since become a judge, said the commissioner did not have the power to begin such criminal proceedings because he needed the consent of the Attorney General.
The men had not presented enough evidence to prove their point and although they had presented documentation to sustain their version, they did not testify or produce witnesses.
He also noted that Mr Aliyev was being accused of committing the crimes between 1997 and 1999 when those crimes did not exist in the Maltese criminal code.
It was clear from this fact alone that the request could not be accepted, the magistrate said. Taking the witness stand, Joseph Mizzi, a former director at the expatriates and citizenship department, said that the law allowed Mr Aliyev to either use a tax benefit scheme and become a permanent resident or for him to invoke his freedom of movement rights under EU law.
He said that an individual could not have both.
Also testifying, Police Inspector Raymond Aquilina, said that from what he knew and the investigations he conducted, Mr Aliyev was not Malta.
He was not at his properties or frequenting places he used to.
The inspector said that Mr Aliyev’s lawyer, Joseph Giglio, had been accepting court summons on his behalf but then stopped after losing contact with him.