The wife of Rakhat Aliyev made an emotional statement of regret that he did not live to see the day he could clear his name, as a Vienna court started hearing a case involving her husband yesterday.

Dr Aliyev, a former ambassador of Kazakhstan to Austria, was the main suspect in the case being heard but he was found hanged in a Vienna prison in February.

The trial revolves around the abduction and murder of two bankers in 2007 who former secret service chief Alnur Mussayev and presidential guard Vadim Koshlyak allegedly killed out of loyalty to Dr Aliyev.

Dr Aliyev, the former son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, had always maintained his innocence. He fell out with the regime and sought refuge in Malta for a number of years.

He left soon after a rare interview with The Sunday Times of Malta in July 2013, in which he said his country’s secret service had established a network with a mission to “kidnap or kill” him.

His wife, Elnara Shorazova, said yesterday he had been very eager for the trial to start so he could finally clear his name.

“My sympathies go out to the widows of the Nurbank managers. They too, like my husband Rakhat, myself and many others, are victims of the regime of President Nazarbayev,” she said.

Dr Aliyev had been working hard to prove he was not guilty of the charges brought against him. “We had plans for our future together,” she added.

Austria twice refused to extradite Dr Aliyev, who had become a vocal critic of President Nazarbayev. He turned himself in last June.

His lawyer, Klaus Ainedter, told this newspaper in February he had requested the intervention of the FBI in investigations surrounding Dr Aliyev’s death.