The Austrian special services arrested and interrogated policemen who are suspected in an alleged illegal attempt to find out the address of the fugitive ex-ambassador of Kazakhstan Rakhat Aliyev. This action has inflicted serious harm to relations between Vienna and Astana. According to Kazakhstan and to some independent experts, the scandal is another act organized by Aliyev, the former deputy head of the Kazakhstan secret police NSC, who once had taken a training course in FBI.
Information about two policemen arrested on the 11th of February in Vienna suspected in “obtaining secret information from computers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs” for “Kazakhstan clients” that was published in mass-media created a furor. Notwithstanding that Vienna has long been a center of activity of various special services, notably Russian services that have been monitoring activity of the Caucasian Diaspora, the information on the alleged bribery of Austrian legal authorities was rather extraordinary. According to the information confirmed by official sources in Vienna two policemen were discharged from office in relation with being suspected in spying, notably in work for representatives of Kazakhstan government in order to obtain secret information from the EKIS – police computer data base. It is referred to obtaining data concerning the former ambassador of Kazakhstan in Vienna, Rakhat Aliyev. Let’s remind you that over a year and a half ago the Vienna court took a decision not to extradite Rakhat Aliyev, the former ambassador of Kazakhstan in Austria, the former deputy head of the NSC and the former son in law of president N. Nazarbayev to Kazakhstan. Aliyev who escaped to Austria in the middle of 2007 was accused by the Kazakh court of several grave crimes, such as complicacy of kidnappings, tortures and murders and attempts of a coup. Anyhow, the authorities of Austria having relied upon some testimonies of Aliyev’s companion, left him in the country, having declared that the trial in Astana wouldn’t be “fair”. Over a year ago the authorities of Kazakhstan put Rakhat Aliyev on the international wanted list, after the court had accounted him guilty in the aforementioned crimes. The authorities of Vienna didn’t react again. According to the words of the Austrian General Prosecution official Gerhard Jarosch the policemen can be sentenced to three years in prison for spying, while an attempt to obtain a state secret is penalized by 10 years on imprisonment. Mass-media declared that the policemen under suspicion were looking for the Rakhat Aliyev’s address, and one of the Austrian secret services officers had already been convicted for delivering data concerning the fugitive ambassador to Astana. With regard to the attempt of spying the Austrian authorities started an in-house investigation. Herewith, in a while one of the arrested policemen was released. Kazakhstan denies any complicacy to the case of “hiring” policemen in order to find out Aliyev’s address. As the NSC and other governmental sources stress, all hints that the search for this address is connected with some plans of killing the convicted ex-ambassador and former deputy head of the Kazakhstan special services are excruciating. Astana realizes all too well that any attempts of inflicting physical damage to Aliyev would deal a fatal blow to relations between Kazakhstan and Western countries and would shoot down plans on Kazakhstan becoming the OSCE leader in the year 2010. “It would have been a suicide. And a senseless suicide, for Vienna have started reconsidering its decision to give refuge to Rakhat Aliyev, regarding testimonies of family members of Aliyev’s victims. Armangul Kapasheva, the “Tagdyr” fund head, and her companions, fed the Austrian powers with information, and that’s just the beginning. A high-ranking AIA source from Kazakhstan told that Austria should still expect for documents and testimonies that would be provided by Adonis Derbas, a citizen of Canada, whose forfeited testimonies were used to deny Aliyev’s extradition to Kazakhstan. Astana declares that it is a provocative act of the kind that Aliyev had organized last September. The former NSC deputy Alnur Mussayev, one of the Aliyev’s accomplices who had also been convicted for crimes and also was hiding in Vienna, filed a complaint to Austrian police that he and his companion were attacked. He was allegedly attacked by four armed “Kazakh agents” who tried to put him into the car, but he managed to “fend them off”. Official Vienna didn’t confirm this fact, while according to Gerhard Jarosch, the General Office of Public Prosecutor representative, the legal enforcement authorities got to know the only fact that Mussayev turned to police. Jarosch also disproved information published by some news agencies that life of Rakhat Aliyev was attempted. A representative of the Austrian Office of Public Prosecutor told to mass-media: “As far as I know, Aliyev doesn’t appear in this case”. According to some experts, one of the indirect proofs that it is not a provocative act is the fact that the “spy” case appeared on the background of Armangul Kapasheva’s successful visit to Vienna that was widely publicized and also on the background of a solemn ceremony in the Austrian capital devoted to Kazakhstan entering the OSCE “triad”. “Spy subject” outmatched both events and distracted Austrian public from the fact that the convicted fugitive ex-ambassador is staying in their country. Rakhat Aliyev, an experienced NSC officer and a FBI trainee, clearly understood advantages of the scandal with "bribery of Austrian policemen". There is yet another version published by "Deutche Welle", that the policemen could have really monitored information for the Kazakhs, but not the Aliyev’s address. They could have tried to know whether there was data related to the Alnur Mussayev’s “kidnapping” in the police EKIS computer. According to this source, who is an anonymous employee of the Austrian secret services, the attempt to know whether the Austrian authorities had any information concerning real participants of the kidnapping scene, undertaken by the Kazakhs, proves that Astana is sincere in its declaration. Otherwise the Kazakhs have no reason to find it out. Herewith if it was not published, it would cast light on Rakhat Aliyev’s “patrons”. Besides, some well-known Austrian politicians who couldn’t understand why Kazakhstan was denied of extraditing a convicted criminal also were searching for those authorities interested to keep the fugitive ex-ambassador in Vienna by all means. The source of the "Deutche Welle" magazine told that telephones of these politicians had been bugged by Austrian special services. Therefore the “spy scandal” between Vienna and Astana raises a lot of questions. How would it end is still unknown, but it’s clear that it plays into hands of the only man - Rakhat Aliyev, whose aim is to disavowal the Kazakhstan authorities in any sphere as much as possible
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