Austrian police today arrested Rakhat Aliyev, the Kazakh president's son-in-law and former ambassador to Austria, who is accused of kidnap and running a crime network in the Central Asian country.
The arrest of Mr Aliyev, who declared he wanted to run for president in 2012, marks another twist in the battle for power and influence in the oil rich former Soviet nation where clan divisions and family connections play a key role in politics. Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, ordered police to investigate his son-in-law last week, seized some of his media assets and sacked him from his position as ambassador.
Mr Nazarbayev's move came days after he signed constitutional amendments allowing him to stay in office for life. An international arrest warrant for Mr Aliyev was issued on Monday and he lost his diplomatic immunity a day later.
"He is now in detention pending deportation and the court will decide about the extradition request," said Austrian police spokesman Gerald Hesztera. Mr Aliyev, a powerful businessman who owns a Kazakh news agency, is accused of abducting two executives of Nurbank, a mid-size Kazakh bank he controls.
He says the arrest warrant is politically motivated and charges were brought against him after he told his father-in-law he was considering running for president.
"I am not involved in this so called abduction case, nor in any other illegal activities," Aliyev told Austrian weekly Profil in an interview published last week.
Mr Aliyev - who once proposed setting up a monarchy in Kazakhstan - has accumulated vast political and business weight in the Central Asian nation since the mid-1990s. He is married to Mr Nazarbayev's eldest daughter Dariga, who is seen as a possible successor to her father.
