Spokesman for Kazakhstan's Interior Ministry Bagdat Kozhakhmetov said Thursday Rakhat Aliyev, a powerful businessman and a former ambassador to Austria, was being investigated for fraud in Vienna.
"The Austrian prosecutor's office is only considering an extradition request from the Kazakh side," Gerhard Jarosch, a spokesman for Austria's top prosecutors, said over the phone. "I have no information about any other case."
Aliyev was arrested in Vienna June 1 and released on a one-million-euro bail Sunday. He is awaiting a ruling on his extradition.
Aliyev was fired as ambassador late last month after publicly accusing Kazakhstan's 17-year leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, of totalitarian rule. The fugitive businessman also announced he would run against Nazarbayev at elections in 2012.
A few days earlier, the president signed a constitutional amendment removing restrictions on the number of consecutive terms he can serve, receiving parliament's backing. The law will not apply to subsequent leaders.
Aliyev insisted in an interview with Austrian weekly Profil that the charges against him were trumped up on orders from Nazarbayev, and that if he were extradited, his life would be in danger.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said in a live online Q & A session Thursday that he would personally see to it that Aliyev is brought to justice.
"I will make sure that the case is completed and reaches court," Nazarbayev said. "For me as an individual, it is a difficult question. It was not easy for me and my family to make this decision."
