Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev sacked his son-in-law, diplomat Rakhat Aliyev, on Saturday after Aliyev challenged the Kazakh leader by declaring he intended to run for the presidency.
The president dismissed Aliyev, his daughter Dariga's husband, from the post of ambassador to Austria after ordering the police to investigate him on suspicion of kidnapping two senior bankers. Aliyev, a powerful businessman and politician, said he fell out with Nazarbayev because of his political ambitions, and accused the veteran leader of the Central Asian state of trying to silence him.
"This hastily organised case is truly 'important'. Its 'importance' lies in the attempt to remove me from the political process in the country," Aliyev said in a statement on the Web site of the Kazakhstan Today news agency, which he controls.