The tragic saga of the late former son-in-law of Kazakhstan's all-powerful president took a further twist Tuesday as two of the dead man's associates on trial for murder in Austria were released from custody.
A spokesman for Vienna's criminal court said that there was "contradictory evidence from Kazakhstan" and no longer a "suspicion of a criminal act" to justify their detention. The trial however continues.
The autocratic oil-rich Central Asian state accuses the two men, former intelligence chief Alnur Mussayev and ex-bodyguard Vadim Koshlyak, of murdering two bank executives in Kazakhstan in 2007.
The alleged mastermind, Rakhat Aliyev, who used to be married to President Nursultan Nazarbayev's daughter Dariga before he fell from grace, was found hanged in his Austrian prison cell on Feb 24.
Before his death, Austria had refused to extradite Aliyev, who prior to his downfall was Kazakhstan's ambassador to the EU country, deciding 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.
Austrian authorities said that Aliyev's death was suicide but his lawyers have claimed that he was murdered. Results from a second autopsy and from a toxicology test are still outstanding.
Nazarbayev, 74, this week extended his grip on power in the former Soviet republic, winning 97.7% of ballots in an election slammed by Western observers as deeply flawed.
AFP, 30 April 2015
