[attach id=422710 size="medium"]Before his death, Rakhat Aliyev consistently maintained he was being persecuted by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Photo: Reuters[/attach]

Rakhat Aliyev would have still been alive today if Austrian authorities had listened to arguments that evidence against him was not to be trusted, his lawyers told Times of Malta.

Mr Aliyev, the late former son-in-law of Kazakhstan’s autocratic president, was found hanged in a Vienna prison in February. That was almost two years after he left Malta where he had been seeking refuge after falling out with the Kazakh regime.

He was the alleged mastermind behind the abduction and murder of two bankers, according to Kazakh authorities. Austria refused to extradite him. Instead he was imprisoned, pending trial in Vienna but was found dead in suspicious circumstances.

After only eight days and eight witnesses, the Austrian judge hearing the case decided to release Mr Aliyev’s two alleged associates on trial for the murder of two bankers in 2007.

“This shows that our argument that evidence presented against Mr Aliyev from Kazakhstan could not be trusted. His imprisonment was a scandal. He would have still been alive today,” his lawyer Klaus Ainedter told Times of Malta.

He had handed himself in to Austrian authorities soon after he gave a rare interview to 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 after he fell out with the regime.

His imprisonment was a scandal. He would have still been alive today

During his time in Malta he published a book called The Godfather-in-law in which Mr Aliyev documented the corrupt, criminal activities of the autocratic system in Kazakhstan.

Despite his death, the trial continues. Yet this week it took a further twist, with the release from custody of his alleged partners in crime. The move lends substance to his claims of innocence before his death.

When Mr Aliyev was found hanged in his cell in February, Austrian authorities said his death was suicide. Yet, his lawyers have claimed he was murdered.

Results from a second autopsy and from a toxicology test are still outstanding.

Before his death, Austria refused to extradite Mr Aliyev, who prior to his downfall was Kazakhstan’s ambassador to the EU country. Austrian authorities decided instead to put the three men in the dock in Vienna.

The trial began on April 14 and had been due to last 26 days, with more than 60 witnesses called to take the stand, most of them flying in from Kazakhstan and some testifying by video link.

One of the witnesses for Kazakhstan is already facing prosecution for false testimony under oath.

Meanwhile, the president of the autocratic oil-rich Central Asian state, Nursultan Nazarbayev, this week extended his grip on power in the former Soviet republic winning 97.7 per cent of the vote in an election Western observers have said was deeply flawed.