Rakhat Aliyev forged many documents to prove innocence: expert

Rakhat Aliyev. Photo: youtube.comRakhat Aliyev, Kazakhstan's former Ambassador to Austria who turned fugitive tycoon will stand trial in Vienna on September 16, Tengrinews reports citing Forbes. Many of the documents provided by the ex-Ambassador to prove his innocence in court have been found to be forgeries, so even through the Austrian prosecutor has not presented any charges against Aliyev yet, the hearing is unlikely to end well for the Kazakhstani. 

Famous forgery expert Gideon Epstein inspected the documents Aliyev provided and declared many of them forged. Epstein spent years hunting down Nazi war criminals, so exposing forgery in Aliyev’s documents wasn't hard for him.

These documents alleged a global anti-Aliyev conspiracy purported to involve former U.S. president Bill Clinton, former CIA director James Woolsey, and former British PM Tony Blair. All along the way, the fugitive tycoon was presenting himself as a dissident, confusing journalists and jurors on two continents.

Under cross examination Aliyev admitted receiving the forged documents from his KNB sources in Kazakhstan and confirmed that the agency had the capacity to fabricate the documents. KNB is Kazakhstan's National Security Committee, a Kazakh version of Soviet KGB. Aliyev led the Committee while in Almaty from 1999 until 2000 and served as its first deputy head thereafter.

The Austrian authorities, according to Forbes, have found gigabytes of information proving Rakhat Aliyev's involvement in falsification of the documents. Prosecutors studied the Skype records of conversations of the fugitive Kazakh tycoon with his associates. Some of them were even published by European media. In particular, Austrian Weiner Zeitung released a transcript of Aliyev’s conversation with his accomplice where the two discussed forging a letter that would present Tony Blair and former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer part of a global conspiracy.

Aliyev fled Kazakhstan in 2007 with billions of dollars when charges against him started mounting, but was arrested in Austria only in June 2014. He spend all these years living in Europe and attempting for influence the Western public opinion by presenting himself as a "progressive political dissident".

His arrest term runs out on September 16. In the official answer to Tengrinews the Viennese Prosecutor’s Office said that no charges had been brought against Aliyev. So unless there are enough grounds to extend his arrest, Aliyev will walk after the trial.

The Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that the evidences against Aliyev provided by Kazakhstan's prosecutors were attached to the case. But did not specify if they were expected to play any role in the Austrian process. 

In Kazakhstan Aliyev was found guilty of kidnapping, torture, murders, treason and preparing a coup d’état and sentenced to 40 years in prison in absentia.

Source: Tengrinews.kz