ASTANA -- Quanysh Nurghazin, an uncle of self-exiled Kazakh opposition figure Mukhtar Ablyazov, has been detained after his arrival at the Almaty international airport, the Central Asian nation's Prosecutor-General's Office said on July 25.
The statement said Nurghazin was detained on July 24 and transferred to house arrest. It called him Ablyazov's "accomplice" and "the nominal director" of the BSC company through which Ablyazov allegedly illegally transferred significant amounts of cash abroad.
"Nurghazin resided in Lithuania for 12 years, where he had obtained refugee status. He expressed his willingness to return to Kazakhstan," the Prosecutor-General's Office said in the statement.
Ablyazov wrote on Facebook that his uncle is 73 years old and suffers from serious medical problems and wants to be buried in his native country if he dies.
Ablyazov, 60, the former head of BTA Bank, is wanted in Kazakhstan and Russia on suspicion of embezzling some $5 billion. Ablyazov and his supporters reject the charge as politically motivated.
Ablyazov was sentenced to life in prison in absentia in 2018 after a court in Kazakhstan found him guilty of masterminding the murder of a banker in 2004.
In a separate in-absentia trial in Kazakhstan that ended in 2017, Ablyazov was convicted of embezzlement, abuse of office, and organizing a criminal group and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
In December, 2020, a court in Russia sentenced Ablyazov to 15 years in prison in absentia on embezzlement charges.
Ablyazov, who coordinates the activities of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan opposition movement from abroad, denies all the charges.
The outspoken critic of the Kazakh government has been residing in France for years.
Ablyazov has been organizing unsanctioned anti-government rallies in Kazakhstan via the Internet while in exile.
Kazakh authorities labeled DVK an extremist organization in 2017 and dozens of the movement's supporters faced persecution for having links with Ablyazov and his movement.
