The daughter of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev confirmed on Wednesday she had filed for divorce from her husband Rakhat Aliyev, a powerful businessman who had fallen out with her father.
Aliyev, wanted at home on kidnapping charges, is in Vienna awaiting an extradition hearing. He said on June 11 he had been divorced from his wife Dariga without his consent. Dariga Nazarbayeva, a member of parliament and tipped as a possible successor to Nazarbayev, confirmed the divorce in an interview with the Kazakhstan Today news agency.
"It's true, there are a lot of rumours. I can confirm only one thing - the divorce," she told the agency previously jointly owned by Aliyev and Dariga, both 44. "It's a tough challenge for my family. I can just add that from my part it was a pained and conscious decision," added Dariga, the eldest of Nazarbayev's three daughters.
Aliyev says the criminal case against him is politically motivated. He has accused Nazarbayev, in power since 1989, of usurping power in the oil-producing Central Asian state. Aliyev said someone had put divorce papers through the fence of his house in Vienna containing his falsified signature.
In May, Nazarbayev ordered police to investigate Aliyev on suspicion of kidnapping senior officials at Nurbank, a mid-size Kazakh bank Aliyev controls, and sacked him from his position as ambassador to Austria. He was served with an international arrest warrant but is now free on bail awaiting an extradition hearing.