Shaving it too close? Rakhat Aliev and extradition
Well, the authorities nabbed Mr. Aliev as he returned from the barber shop, based upon a court order issued in Vienna. Personally, with his millions, I would have asked for a house call. The puns that come to mind are endless: e.g., giving one’s head for washing. . .
but on to the serious aspects of the Aliev case.
Many are saying that this scandalous affair puts paid to Kazakhstan’s OSCE ambitions. This is a bit cultural-centric. Getting Mr. Aliev out of Austria and into Kazakhstan is going to require a lot of negotiating. The end result may have Kazakhstan divesting itself of OSCE ambitions almost as easily.
Extradition and Human Rights Law
Right now, Mr. Aliev is out on a bail of Euro 1 million (that’s USD 1.3 million), but still faces the prospect of extradition. There are no existing extradition treaties between Kazakhstan and Austria, so extradition will probably be a laborious process. For one thing, Mr. Aliev and the six other staffers and associates named in the extradition request may not be extradited if Kazakhstan cannot guarantee a due process that meets European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)/EU standards of human rights law.
In The Soering Case (ECHR, 1989), the ECHR reviewed U.S. standards of jurisprudence, conditions of imprisonment, and the EU-outlawed use of capital punishment in its efforts to decide whether or not to extradite Jens Soering of Germany to the U.S. in a murder trial. The U.S. had to stipulate that it would not try Mr. Soering under charges conducive to death-penalty stipulation before Mr. Soering could be extradited.
The Einhorn Case, (around 2001) again between an EU state (France) and the US, sets a precedent against extradition after trials in absentia, which might limit Kazakhstan’s legal recourse against Aliev. It is also another precedent that limits extradition when the custodial state perceives a lack of due process in the state requesting extradition.
One possibility: Legal coordination between Kazakhstan and EU could well result from this process, making Aliyev’s charges less of a liability to EU-OSCE-Kazakhstan cooperation than an avenue toward it.
Another possibility: Based upon Soering, Kazakhstan may have to concede, just as the U.S. did, the scope of punishment available for Mr. Aliev (not capital punishment). This could be a concession that would be easy for Kazakhstan to give, or difficult, depending upon what charges and the range of punishments possible from those charges against Mr. Aliev.
Third possibility: If Austria does not release Mr. Aliev, it could be an enduring point of contention. In the absence of extradition treaties, a state has no obligation to return a prisoner when requested, especially if they consider it a political crime. This also has precedents:
In 2000, opposition leader and former Premier Akezhan Kazhegeldin was wanted for criminal charges. Kazakhstan’s request to Italy for Mr. Kazhegeldin’s extradition was not honored and he was freed. Eventually, Mr. Kazhegeldin went to Russia, where extradition treaties were in effect. He returned to Kazakhstan on his own recognizance.
Further reading:
Wikipedia on extradition
A model extradition treaty from the University of Michigan
Janis & Noyes, that legal tome: see Sourcenotes: general
Painting: Robert Cottingham at the Seavest Collection
June 4th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Dear Bonnie:
Thx for the good analysis on the possible extradition of Dr. Aliyev.
Our NGO covers the Kazakh developments for years now and we are well aware of the fact that Aliyev is definitely NOT a leader of pushing the country toward democracy and pluralism.
But in fact we are a little bit scared about the real implications of Nazarbayev in this case. Beside the fact that he wants to get rid of all possible rivals in the country, he still did not get-up his main aim: chairing the OSCE.
So the hole Aliyev-case in fact could have the result that the EU and US will now support him and his gov, because he cleaned hiis “house”. Nobody in the West is talking about the personal engagement of the President in corruption, insulting opposition politicians, persecuting independent journalists. With the case of his son-in-law, he could catch two flies with one hand: Eliminating a major rival and at the same time showing that he is the only person who can transform the country.
June 4th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Dear Michael,
Thank you for writing in. Inherent in this whole scandal is a spectre of elite v. elite politics–between the Aliev and the Nazarbaev groups, and of course the spin is on. As I wrote in another post in this blog, Mr. Aliev has not won the subtlety prize, so his spin is certainly less effective.
As to consolidation of power, Kazakhstan Today, one of the Aliev-Nazarbaeva news agencies, is reporting that they have blocked transmission through phone lines–although one can still access them on the Internet, which they also reported.
What I really think is happening though, is that Aliev has become a liability to the family. That does not mean he should not be prosecuted, however. The alleged crimes of Mr. Aliev in regard to Nurbank in January of this year extend to beatings, kidnapping, extortion, and one bank official who is still missing.
I think the considerations you mention are on everyone’s mind concerning democracy and pluralism, but all of us are in a kind of watching stage at this point. It’s all very complex, isn’t it?
June 4th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
[…] With Rakhat Aliev, the son-in-law of Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbaev, having been arrested in Austria and released on bail awaiting extradition to Kazakhstan to face kidnapping and other criminal charges, Bonnie Boyd examines some of the possible outcomes of his extradition hearing and what they might mean for relations between Kazakhstan and the EU. Share This […]
June 5th, 2007 at 12:59 am
Great post! Amazing how news on Aliyev trumps anything else about Central Asia now. Check out Rakhat Aliyev’s interview with Profil magazine here. If you can’t read German like me, here’s a rough-and-ready Google translation but I’d love for someone to clean it up. Any takers?
June 5th, 2007 at 1:04 am
From the Profil interview, Rakhat Aliyev comments on Nursultan Nazarbayev, his President and father-in-law:
He believes what wants to believe: Just like in the film „Titanic “, where Leonardo di Caprio stands at the tip of the prow and shouts: “I am the king of the world.”
June 5th, 2007 at 5:54 am
I will try to translate the interview in Profil in the next days
June 5th, 2007 at 5:56 am
By the way: 3 weeks ago we received reliable infos that the body of Timraliyev (the kidnapped Nurbank manager) was found killed near Almaty. Strange that - if it is true - it never became public.
June 5th, 2007 at 6:33 am
Dear Teo,
Thanks for bringing the Profil article forward and the Google transa-hack-lation. Lately I’ve been getting pretty good at reading these, in the absence of real language skills.
Dear Michael,
I think I have the gist myself, but you might be interested.
If you do translate this document and if you put it on your Eurasian Transitions Group site, I will definitely use it and link to it. There’s another one that might be worth looking at (I also used translation program) from Austria’s Format magazine on Mr. Kurt Wala, who is working for free at Nurbank. . . and who has some conflicts of interest with previous jobs in Austria. It’s very short. . . .
As for Mr. Timraliev, this is terrible news. The intimation in the press is that he has been “in hiding and in fear of his life/prosecution.” It also makes Mr. Aliev’s case a possible murder trial, which ups the stakes.
It also recalls the death of Yerzhan Tatishev, the Bank Turan Alem executive in 2004.
Thanks so much for sharing your expertise.
Bonnie
June 5th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Just to let you know: I just started with the translation. Also talked with the journalist of Profil and asked for a permission by the publishing house to publish an inofficial translation of the piece. As soon they give me the ok, I will inform you.
June 5th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Excellent article, and excellent comments as well! Just wanted clarification on Kazgeldin. My understanding is that he was hiding out in Switzerland these days, but your article implies that he is back in KZ. Again, not a topic that gets a lot of mainstream coverage so I’d love to know what went down with that.
June 5th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
[…] Bonnie Boyd at Central Asia has an update on the situation with Aliyev. He has been detained–on his way back from a barber shop no less, but has paid his bail of 1 million Euros. Bonnie provides an excellent analysis of how the extradition process might work. […]
June 6th, 2007 at 7:59 am
Ok, translation is on our web site after I recieved the ok from the editor-in-chief of Profil.
Regarding Kazhegeldin: It was not clear in Bonnie’s article: He was arrested in Italy first, released and then re-arrested while he was in Russia. For years now he seems to live in Europe and US.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Dear Michael,
This is great! Thank you for doing this!
Bonnie
June 15th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
[…] For those of you that might be new to this conflict, I posted on Kazakhstan’s Family Dynamic on May 28; Rakhat Aliev’s Extradition on June 4; and related Bank Business on June 6. These posts are referenced, and best of all, the comments are informative. The rest can just push on: […]
August 7th, 2007 at 9:25 am
[…] I mentioned a while ago about the situation with Nazabayev’s (the President of Kazakhstan) son-in-law Rakhat Aliev (also spelt Aloyev). Thanks to this post at KZBlog, I have now read a good couple of posts that summarize the situation well. Two hours ago the links worked fine, now I can not access them. The most likely explanation is simply that the server for that site is having problems, though other issues, such as a block being placed by Kazakh authorities are possible. Hopefully not too likely, but something to consider… Anyway, the 1st (and newer) post details the issues surrounding Aliyev’s extradition, and the second was written a little earlier, and is a more general summary of what has been allegedly going on with Aliyev and accusations of kidnapping. […]
August 9th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
[…] As I noted previously, there are precedents in international law for European Courts to refuse extradition of defendants based upon the legal mores of the country requesting extradition. However, I’m not sure a London vacation is the best compromise between lofty Euro-goals and criminal justice: two Nurbank officials remain dead, and somebody murdered them. […]