Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Wednesday ordered police to investigate his son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev, in an apparent bid to tighten control over the political scene in the Central Asian state. The surprise move against Aliyev took place days after Nazarbayev, in power since 1989, signed constitutional amendments allowing him to remain in office for life.
Police said they had opened a criminal case into Aliyev on suspicion of his involvement in the kidnapping in January of two executives of Nurbank - a medium-sized bank controlled by Aliyev.
"The president gave personal orders to the general prosecutor and the interior minister to hold the investigation ... in the most thorough way," Interior Ministry spokesman Bagdat Kozhakhmetov told reporters in the capital Astana. Kozhakhmetov only read out a police statement and did not take any questions. Aliyev could not be reached for comment.
Aliyev, the husband of Nazarbayev's eldest daughter Dariga, is a powerful businessman and politician in the oil-rich former Soviet nation. He was sent to Vienna as ambassador in February. Government sources and analysts have told Reuters his removal from the political scene could be linked to his falling out with the president in a country where clan divisions dominate political life.
The Kazakhstan Today news agency reported that the house of Aliyev's father in Kazakhstan was searched earlier in the day. Nurbank's former CEO Abilmazhen Gilimov has accused Aliyev of staging his kidnapping and that of his deputy - a charge Aliyev has strongly denied.