France today ordered the extradition to Russia of the oligarch who skipped Britain during the UK’s biggest High Court fraud hearing, involving $6 billion.
Mukhtar Ablyazov, a former minister in Kazakhstan, claims he is being persecuted for political reasons by the rulers of his oil-rich homeland, where he founded an opposition party to its dictatorial leader Nursultan Nazarbayev.
His wife, Alma Shalabayeva, said after today’s ruling: “Extraditing him means condemning him to death.” She was herself controversially deported from Italy to Kazakhstan last year.
Mr Ablyazov, the former energy and trade minister of Kazakhstan, was sentenced to 22 months in jail by a UK judge for contempt of court in 2012. He fled the country for France in 2012 while being sued in London by the Kazakh BTA Bank. BTA alleged he embezzled funds while acting as chairman of the bank. It claimed he had bought a host of upmarket properties in London and elsewhere around the world with the money. He denied the allegations.
Private investigators working on behalf of BTA tracked him down to a luxury villa near Cannes by following his wife and he was arrested by French special forces.
The French court approved the extradition requests from Russa and Ukraine but recommended Russia should take priority because the scale of the alleged embezzlement there, at $5 billion, is far higher than the $400 million alleged by Ukraine. His legal team said they would appeal.
