Mukhtar Ablyazov's lawyers statement
AIX-EN-PROVENCE PROSECUTOR AND COURT ADMIT ERRORS IN ABLYAZOV EXTRADITION DECISIONS; NOW TRYING TO INTERFERE IN PROCEEDINGS AT CASSATION COURT IN PARIS
DEFENSE BLASTS ATTEMPT TO PREVENT ABLYAZOV WIN AT CASSATION COURT;
SAYS PROSECUTOR SERVING CORRUPT REGIMES OF KAZAKHSTAN, RUSSIA AND UKRAINE;
DENOUNCES AIX-EN-PROVENCE COURT’S NONCHALANCE ABOUT CERTITUDE OF UNFAIR TRIAL AND TORTURE IF ABLYAZOV EXTRADITED
Aix-en-Provence, March 13, 2014 — Aix-en-Provence prosecutor Solange Legras and the Court of Appeal of Aix-en-Provence have admitted that errors undermine the twin court decisions of January 9, 2014 that approved the extradition of Kazakh political opponent and former BTA Bank chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov.
The Aix-en-Provence court had responded favorably to extradition requests from Russia and Ukraine, giving priority to the Russian request. Even though Ablyazov’s case is now at the Cassation Court in Paris, Legras asked that a new hearing be held on February 27, 2014 at the court in Aix-en-Provence, at which she asked the court to correct the errors. On March 13, 2014, the court in Aix-en-Provence ruled to agree with her request.
Ablyazov’s defense had asserted that the Aix-en-Provence court should reject the prosecutor’s request to amend the decisions. They called the prosecutor’s maneuver “ungrounded and completely unprecedented in French law”. They warned the judges not to appear to be acting collusively with the prosecutor to correct the flaws, which would be an illegal way of trying to ensure their decision to extradite Ablyazov withstands the scrutiny of the Cassation Court.
Learning of this latest twist in his case, Ablyazov declared: “The Aix-en-Provence prosecutor’s tardy move to correct the errors of the local court is an attempt to prevent the Cassation Court in Paris from quashing the decisions against me.”
Ablyazov further noted: “I am shocked that the prosecutor and the court in Aix-en-Provence are so willing to believe allegations coming from regimes that put bullets in the backs of protesters and illegally seize private businesses. I am even more shocked that whatever they think of the allegations, the prosecutor and the court in Aix-en-Provence pretend that I could ever have a fair trial in Russia or Ukraine, or avoid being tortured or killed if extradited.”
The flaws involve changes in the members of the three-judge panels in Aix-en-Provence that participated in the extradition hearing and that delivered the decisions on the politically sensitive case. The court was suspiciously silent on which judges actually deliberated on each of the two decisions. Under French law the judges who participated in a hearing must be the ones who deliberate on a decision. The prosecutor asked the court to reconvene even though the case is under the control of the Cassation Court in Paris, and went so far as to suggest specific wording to amend both decisions to add the names of the judges that the prosecutor assumes actually participated in the deliberations.
Ablyazov’s defense strenuously objected to the prosecutor’s attempt to short-circuit a possible quashing of the extradition decisions by the Cassation Court. The defense affirms that the lack of clarity over which judges deliberated is an important issue, and the omission of this information is only one of numerous errors made by the Aix-en-Provence court.
The defense admonished the local prosecutor for “slavishly serving the corrupt regimes of Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine” seeking Ablyazov’s extradition, declaring that she “lacks objectivity” on the case and has “brought shame to the French justice system and the French values she is supposed to uphold”. The lawyers emphasized that the allegations the trio of ex-Soviet countries are making against Ablyazov all flow from the unlawful and violent 2009 nationalization of BTA Bank by the notoriously corrupt Kazakh regime. The nationalization sought to eliminate Ablyazov’s power base as the leading opponent of the regime, and to prevent Ablyazov from triggering a contagion of political opposition in former Soviet countries.
Legras ordered Ablyazov’s arrest in the south of France in July 2013. Lawyers serving the interests of Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev asked her to arrest Ablyazov after their private detectives located him in France. Legras worked with Kazakhstan’s lawyers, ordering Ablyazov’s arrest on the basis of an Interpol notice posted by Ukraine in 2011. She later worked closely with French lawyers appointed by the corrupt and murderous Ukrainian regime to mount a case against Ablyazov that sought to whitewash Kazakhstan’s brutal and illegal nationalization of BTA Bank in 2009. The nationalization of BTA Bank inflicted grave human rights abuses on scores of people and their families, with innocents rounded up, tortured and jailed.
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