Friday, December 12, 2014

Aliyev’s cronies respond with coordinated attack on JusticeForNovikova sites


At request of Aliyev’s partner’s British lawyers, CNN has censored links to videos of JusticeForNovikova protests.
Rakhat Aliyev’s family members and business partners have begun a coordinated attack on the campaign to bring Anastasiya Novikova’s murderers to justice.
They began by convincing Facebook and CNN to censor content that criticizes them.
Their British lawyers did so by using the United Kingdom’s draconian and antiquated anti-libel legal traditions to ban the links and videos from being seen in Britain.* They apparently seek to use the threat of costly litigation in the UK to censor criticism of them on the Internet worldwide.
On December 11-12, Facebook responded by censoring the Prosecute Aliyev Facebook page in the UK. Facebook banned links, images and videos deemed critical of Aliyev’s brother-in-law Issam Hourani (Khorani) and Issam’s brother, Devincci Hourani.
Facebook warned that it would de-activate the Prosecute Aliyev page and the related user accounts if further offensive content was posted.
Facebook also censored its British users from links to the @ProsecuteAliyev page on Twitter.
Both Houranis are Aliyev’s business partners.

They are suspected of being material participants in the murder of Anastasiya Novikova in 2004, where they owned the apartment where the young women was held captive, tortured and raped. She “fell” to her death from the apartment balcony.
Also on December 11-12, CNN responded to the British lawyers by censoring videos of Justice for Novikova protests in London and in Vienna, Austria.
The protests were uploaded to CNN iReport, a hosting service that CNN says is devoted to “citizen journalism” to bring out news that otherwise would not be reported.
Links to those videos – including the November 16 “Get the Murderers Out of London” protest – are now dead.
Twitter has not taken any censorship action. At least not yet.
Issam and Devincci Hourani have become sensitive to recent publicity that, in 2013, a United States federal judge threw out their defamation case “with prejudice,” partly in regard to forged documents that the Houranis used to file their case. On the last page of his 2013 ruling, the judge said the Houranis’ case was “without merit.”
Below is a gallery of the warnings from Facebook and dead links from CNN.
_____
*Britain’s libel laws were so draconian that Parliament overhauled them in 2013. Criminals from all over the world practiced “libel tourism” to use British courts as jurisdiction to file harassing litigation against their critics – even if neither the critics nor the criminals were citizens or residents of the United Kingdom. Although the law has changed, companies like Facebook and CNN are still reactive to British lawyers and their libel-tourist clients. Rakhat Aliyev is not a citizen of the UK. Issam Hourani was born in Lebanon and holds a British passport and reportedly a Palestinian diplomatic passport. Devincci Hourani was also born in Lebanon and holds an American passport and reportedly a Palestinian diplomatic passport.

Monday, November 24, 2014

More pictures from Nov 16 London protest


Message to Lebanese government and ‘Justice for Novikova’ in Arabic.
We have received more photos of the #JusticeForNovikova protest in London that called for two associates of Rakhat Aliyev to be brought to trial for Anastasiya’s murder.
The protest took place near the Lebanese Embassy after policewarned supporters that they risked arrest if they attempted to hand-deliver a letter to the Lebanese Ambassador.
The letter supported a Lebanese judge who is considering a case against Aliyev’s in-laws, Issam and Devincci Hourani, in connection with Anastasiya’s murder in 2004.
CNN iReport published a video online of the protest. A gallery of the photos appears below. See the related Twitter feeds with the hashtag#RakhatAliyev.

London protesters carry banners in English and Arabic, calling for Lebanon
to try Issam and Devincci Hourani for the murder of Anastasiya Novikova.


They tried to deliver a letter to the Lebanese ambassador. . .


A British police officer tells the women that they may be arrested
if they try to deliver the letter to the Lebanese Ambassador.


The letter, signed in Anastasiya’s name, that protesters
tried to deliver to the Lebanese Ambassador in London.


The Lebanese Embassy in London, where our supporters tried to deliver a letter to the ambassador.


Security is tight at Kensington Palace Mews,
the gated street that houses many embassies, including that of Lebanon.


"Get the murderers out of London!"


Dozens of protesters assembled.


Devincci Hourani: ‘Get him out of London’


Messages in Arabic, supporting Lebanon judge to try the accomplices.


Demand to put Issam Hourani on trial for murder


The embassies can be seen in the background.


Rakhat Aliyev – Murderer


Justice for Novikova


Message to Lebanese government and ‘Justice for Novikova’ in Arabic

Friday, November 21, 2014

CNN shows our London protest video on iReport

[UPDATE, December 12, 2014: Rakhat Aliyev’s business partners/in-laws invoked Britain’s laws to pressure CNN to censor this video.]


For the second time since July, CNN has hosted a video of our protests to bring the murderers of Anastasiya Novikova to justice.
The latest video is of our November 16 protest outside the Lebanese Embassy in London. #JusticeForNovikova activists attempted to deliver a letter to the Lebanese Ambassador, but were stopped by police and warned that they would be arrested.

London protesters carry banners in English and Arabic, calling for Lebanon to try Issam and Devincci Hourani for the murder of Anastasiya Novikova.

The letter was an expression of support for the Lebanese judge who is reportedly considering Anastasiya’s murder case. Two prime suspects are said to be named – both of whom are Lebanese co-conspirators of Rakhat Aliyev.
The suspects are Issam Hourani and Devincci Hourani. The former Hourani is Aliyev’s brother-in-law.
Both have been involved in various well-publicized business schemes and frauds that include forgeries, introduced as evidence in litigation filed in Britain, France and the United States.
“Get the murderers out of London!” the protesters chanted in the video.
One of the participants, a mother who lost her 21 year-old daughter and identifies with Anastasiya’s family, is shown speaking to a police officer outside the gated entrance to the street housing the Lebanese Embassy.
The mother explained to the camera why she was protesting, and spoke, through the video, to Anastasiya’s parents, saying that she and others would fight in Britain for their cause.
The Houranis own a flat at London’s exclusive Lowndes Square, which was the site of a #JusticeForNovikova protest last June, on the 10th anniversary of Anastasiya’s murder.
Protesters chose Lowndes Square because the Houranis owned the Beirut flat where Anastasiya was held captive, turtured, raped, drugged, and ultimately murdered in 2004. The protest took place on the 10th anniversary of her violent death.
Forbes magazine recently wrote a feature on Aliyev’s use of KGB forgeries to discredit his critics, and mentioned Issam and Devincci Hourani for surfacing forgeries as pretexts for litigation.
Our first video run by CNN’s iReport was of our July vigil in Vienna, Austria. A small group of our supporters held a quiet watch in front of the Vienna Criminal Court building on the day of Rakhat Aliyev’s hearing, in which he was expected to ask to be released on his own recognizance.
Instead, Austrian prosecutors kept Aliyev in jail as they built a double murder case against him.

Happy birthday, Anastasiya. You would have been 34 today


Anastasiya Novikova’s grave outside Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Anastasiya Novikova would have been 34 years old today.
She was murdered 10 years ago, at age 24, leaving behind the lovely baby daughter she had conceived with Rakhat Aliyev.
After Anastasiya’s “fall” from a Beirut high-rise in June 2004, her body was taken out of Lebanon on a chartered jet and flown to Kazakhstan, even though Anastasiya was not a citizen of Kazakhstan. Her mother, a Russian who lived in Uzbekistan, was not notified of Anastasiya’s death.
Anastasiya’s broken remains were buried in a shallow grave in a remote abandoned cemetery. Her baby was sent to be raised by the parents of Aliyev’s cousin, whom he had forced her to marry as a way of covering up the paternity of the child. The cousin, Daniyar Esten, then died mysteriously in a Vienna automobile collision the following year.
In 2007, when Anastasiya’s remains were discovered, exhumed and identified, Kazakhstan authorities notified the victim’s family. Her body was given a Christian burial at a cemetery outside Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Now, Anastasiya’s grave remains a place of pilgrimage for those who loved her. Happy birthday, Anastasiya. We will continue to seek justice for you.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

BREAKING: Rakhat Aliyev to be charged with double murder

After interviewing 90 witnesses, Austrian prosecutors have developed a “closed chain of evidence” to charge Rakhat Aliyev with two counts of murder.
According to a 14-page report by prosecutor Bettina Wallner, obtained by Austria’s OE1-Morgenjournal, the evidence is overwhelming that Rakhat Aliyev was responsible for the murders of two executives of Nurbank in Kazakhstan. The news story broke on October 31.
The slain bankers, Zholdas Timraliyev and Aybar Khasenov, were allegedly kidnapped, tortured, and murdered at a farmhouse that Aliyev owned. Their remains were then stuffed in a steel barrel and hidden in a trash dump.
The murdered men’s widows formed a group, Tagdyr, to push for the prosecution of Rakhat Aliyev and other perpetrators of the crimes.
Just days before the October 31 report about the double-murder charges, media outlets sympathetic to Aliyev ran a thinly-sourced article stating that the widows’ group was a front for Kazakhstan’s KNB intelligence service. The theme was identical to earlier Aliyev tactics to brand his opponents as tools of the Kazakh secret service.
In September, Forbes magazine exposed the Aliyev forgery campaign, done in association with his accomplices Issam Hourani and Devincci Hourani (Khourani), to surface forgeries as a way of smearing, intimidating, or otherwise harassing critics.
That same month, Tagdyr took up Anastasiya Novikova’s cause as Anastasiya’s mother expanded her involvement in seeking justice for her daughter’s murder.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

#JusticeNovikova stickers are still appearing around London

JusticeForNovikova supporters remain active around the neighbourhood of Rakhat Aliyev’s accomplices.

Our #JusticeforNovikova stickers are still appearing around London.
We get reports of sticker sightings occasionally. A supporter sent in this photo of our logo that someone had placed at the Knightsbridge underground station earlier this month.
The location is noteworthy, because Knightsbridge is the closest tube stop to Lowndes Square, home of Rakhat Aliyev’s accomplices Issam Hourani and Devincci Hourani.
The Hourani brothers owned the flat in Beirut where Anastasiya Novikova was held captive and killed in 2004.
The first Justice for Novikova protest occurred at Lowndes Square last June, on the 10th anniversary of Anastasiya’s death.
Our stickers have been appearing around the world: In Austria, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and as far away as California USA.
Designs for #JusticeforNovikova stickers, posters, and masks are available for anyone to download, for free, by clicking here or clicking the Downloads tab above.

UPDATE, NOVEMBER 3: More stickers are sighted in London’s Belgravia neighborhood and elsewhere.





The sticker is visible on the lamp post in the middle of the photo.
Others like it were seen around Lowndes Square on the morning of November 1.


This photo was posted on our Facebook page on November 1, outside a restaurant near Lowndes Square.
Thanks to the friend who sent it in.

The image is pulled from our Facebook page.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Our Facebook page has 5000 likes

More than 5,000 people now ‘like’ our Facebook page.

This week, the Justice for Novikova Facebook page hit 5,000 likes – after surpassing Rakhat Aliyev’s own established Facebook page in terms of ‘likes’ last month.
Aliyev claims to be a political ‘dissident’ and human rights victim, but he shows no support from Kazakhstan’s political opposition, and none from the international human rights community.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Financial giant Forbes mentions our campaign

One of the world’s most influential financial and business news sources has cited the Justice for Novikova campaign.
Forbes, published in New York, ran a piece September 3 about forgeries from former Soviet intelligence services. The analytical article featured Rakhat Aliyevand his reported manufacturing of forgeries to wage litigation campaigns in Europe and the United States, and to attack his critics.
Aliyev was trained by the Soviet KGB and was a major general in Kazakhstan’s successor agency, known as KNB.
Those critics whom Aliyev labels “spies” for Kazakhstan’s secret services range from former US president Bill Clinton and former CIA director James Woolsey, to former British prime minister Tony Blair and a range of other European leaders – as well as the Justice for Novikova protesters who held a vigil during Aliyev’s Vienna Criminal Court hearing in July.
According to the Forbes piece,
“Other Kazakh KGB ‘spies,’ according to Aliyev’s conspiracy theory, include former Austrian chancellor Heinz Fischer, former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi, and former Polish president Alexander Kwasniewski. He also accuses former president Bill Clinton, former CIA director James Woolsey and other former U.S. officials of conspiring against him. Aliyev claims they are all part of a Kazakhstan KGB plot called ‘Superkhan.’
“Indeed, everyone seems to be a member of this sinister plot. In July, protesters picketed the Vienna Criminal Court demanding justice for the unsolved violent death of Aliyev’s mistress, Anastasiya Novikova. The former TV anchor was thrown from a nine-story window and impaled on a wrought iron fence of the apartment building of Aliyev’s in-laws. Aliyev responded by calling the protestors Kazakhstan intelligence agents, according to his Facebook page.”
The article also mentions Aliyev’s partners, Issam Hourani and Devincci Hourani (also spelled Khorani), although it does not connect them to the Novikova case.
According to the article,
“Working through his in-laws – Issam Hourani and his brother (both of whom are cousins of Mahmud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority) – Aliyev introduced what attorneys call ‘forgery-based litigation’ as plaintiffs in London’s High Court, World Bank tribunals in Paris, and a U.S. District Court in Washington, DC. Judges in each case discovered the forgeries and the documents were withdrawn.”
A link to the Forbes article is here.

Saturday, July 26, 2014

CNN’s iReport runs our videos of Vienna vigil


CNN’s iReport has run our videos of the July 21 Vienna vigil outside the courthouse where Rakhat Aliyev pled unsuccessfully before an Austrian judge for his freedom.
The videos, produced by #JusticeForNovikova activists,appear on YouTube in addition to the citizen journalism website of CNN.
In one of of our CNN iReport videos, titled “Vienna protesters want Rakhat Aliyev tried for Novikova murder,” protesters explain their concerns that Aliyev may not face justice in Austria because of the fact that Austria’s new Minister of Justice, Wolfgang Brandstetter, was on Aliyev’s payroll to keep the former Kazakhstan KGB general out of prison.
Observers of the protesters agreed that evidence is compelling that Rakhat Aliyev was behind the 2004 murder of Anastasiya Novikova, and that it was incumbent on Austrian authorities to follow every piece of information.
Some of the observers in the video said that “justice can be bought” in Europe, and raised the issue of Brandstetter and Aliyev’s KGB networks as making #JusticeForNovikova anything but a sure thing.
The other of our CNN iReport videos is of our first, quick montage of footage from the protest in front of the Vienna Criminal Court.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

VIDEO: Vienna protest against Rakhat Aliyev



New YouTube video of Vienna protest against Rakhat Aliyev




A video of the Vienna protest at Rakhat Aliyev’s criminal hearing July 21 is now on YouTube.
The video shows the group of young people from Austria and other European countries who gathered for a quiet, 4-hour vigil across from the Vienna Criminal Court.
“I am the same age” as Anastasiya Novikova “when she was killed ten years ago,” a 23 year-old Viennese demonstrator says in the video.
“I came here from Ireland just to see that justice is done,” another 23 year-old woman says at the protest.
“Aliyev must be brought to justice,” a young man in a #JusticeForNovikova shirt adds.
The video has a gritty feel of an amateur production, and it gets the point across well: Rakhat Aliyev is in the prison across the street, attending a court hearing across the street, and Austria must ensure that he is held accountable for Anastasiya Novikova’s fate.
Anastasiya was the young mother of Aliyev’s daughter who was born in 2003. Then Kazakhstan’s ambassador to Austria, Aliyev took unusual lengths to cover up his affair, forcing Anastasiya to marry his cousin, an embassy driver, and move to Beirut, where Anastasiya lived as a captive in an apartment owned by two Aliyev associates. She was murdered by being thrown off the balcony of that apartment on June 19, 2004.
British protesters observed the 10th anniversary of Anastasiya’s death at Lowndes Square in London on June 19 – a protest that the Austria-based activists saw on YouTube.
#RakhatAliyev #JusticeForNovikova #JusticeNovikova video of Vienna protest

Monday, July 21, 2014

Protesters show up at Rakhat Aliyev court hearing in Vienna


Vigil at Rakhat Aliyev court hearing in Vienna
Protesters assemble outside the Vienna Criminal Court during Rakhat Aliyev’s July 21 hearing, calling for #JusticeForNovikova.

A group of protesters is holding a vigil in front of the Vienna court house where Rakhat Aliyev is to attend a hearing today to plead for his freedom.
The protesters are wearing #JusticeForNovikova shirts. They tweeted the accompanying photo.
At the time of this posting, the international group is standing in front of the Vienna Criminal Court (Landesgericht für Strafsachen Wien) on Landesgerichtsstraße, the broad boulevard in the Austrian capital.
Scheduled for today, July 21, the Rakhat Aliyev court hearing is to consider the accused murderer’s plea to be set free and have the murder charges dismissed, or whether to put him on trial in Austria.
Aliyev is being held in the neighboring jail until Austrian authorities decide whether or not to prosecute him on two counts of murder and other charges, for crimes allegedly committed in Kazakhstan.
The #JusticeForNovikova contingent is there to urge Austrian authorities to investigate evidence pointing to Aliyev’s role in Anastasiya’s murder in 2004.
To respect local laws and norms about protests, the #JusticeForNovikova activists did not plan an actual demonstration, but are standing silently, by themselves, reminiscent of the “standing man” passive protest in Turkey.
They did, however, display posters for photographers.
Although not faced in Austria with the police brutality that demonstrators faced in Turkey, the purpose behind the quiet protest, #JusticeForNovikova activists say, is to create a mere presence without violating local laws.
#RakhatAliyev #StandingMan #JusticeNovikova #JusticeForNovikova

Friday, July 18, 2014

International support for #JusticeForNovikova





From Europe to California, more signs of support



#JusticeForNovikova stickers have been seen in Vienna, Austria, where Rakhat Aliyev is awaiting trial for murder.

More and more signs show that the #JusticeForNovikova campaign is gaining support from around the world.
This website is just over a month old, and for the first four days of this week we’ve had more than 1,800 visitors who viewed our pages more than 5,500 times.
Nearly 3,000 people ‘like’ our Justice for Novikova Facebook page.
Our YouTube channel has had almost 8,000 views – with each ‘view’ meaning someone watched at least 30 seconds of our videos – representing 8,630 minutes of video.

A #JusticeForNovikova sticker on California’s Interstate 5, near San Diego. The reflection washes out the picture of the sticker, so check the dark picture, taken without the flash, to see the logo.
First there were the protests in London on the 10th anniversary of Anastasiya Novikova’s murder. People viewed the two protest videos more than 2,900 times on our YouTube channel alone, with hundreds more views on other websites.
From Europe to California
And then the stickers started appearing. First at exclusive Lowndes Square in London. Then in California. Then in the Netherlands, directed at Rakhat Aliyev‘s longtime exile of Malta. Then in Lithuania. Most recently, stickers have appeared in Vienna, Austria, where Aliyev is in prison awaiting trial on murder charges.
What’s next?
For those of you who would like to start your own campaign, we’ve provided a page for you to download PDF images to print your own signs, banners, T-shirts, masks – and of course, stickers.
Send us pictures or videos of your events or other signs of support. Find us at anastasiya@justicefornovikova.com. Or send them directly to our Facebook page – either privately as a message (we’ll protect your anonymity), or post them right on our timeline.
#RakhatAliyev #JusticeForNovikova #JusticeNovikova

AUSTRIA – Solidarity in historic Vienna (lamp post at left), July 19.


AUSTRIA – #JusticeForNovikova stickers are seen
on the streets of the Austrian capital. See close-up for detail.


NETHERLANDS: Another sticker at the Air Malta gate at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam.

LITHUANIA: A sticker appears in the Old Town of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.



CALIFORNIA, USA: Without the flash, you can make out the design 
of the #JusticeForNovikova sticker on Interstate 5 in southern California.



NETHERLANDS: A #JusticeForNovikova sticker is seen on the glass window of the gate overlooking Air Malta’s flight to what had been Rakhat Aliyev’s place of exile. July 2014. The Air Malta jet’s red tail, with the distinctive Maltese Cross, appears in the background.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Kazakhstan sends evidence of Aliyev's involvement in opposition leader murder to Austria


Kazakhstan's Tengri News reports that Kazakhstan has sent documents pointing to the involvement of Rakhat Aliyev in the murder of a Kazakh opposition leader Sarsenbayev to Austria, Tengrinews reports citing Interfax-Kazakhstan.

“We have sent an investigation request [to Austria], in which we specified that we needed to question several individuals and requested an opportunity to do so,” a source in the Kazakhstan General Prosecutor’s Office told Interfax-Kazakhstan.

The request was set to the Austrian law enforcement authorities after the Specialized Inter-District Criminal Court of Almaty Oblast established the involvement of Rakhat Aliyev and former head of the National Security Service Alnur Musayev in the murder of a prominent Kazakhstani politician Altynbek Sarsenbayev and his aides.

The bodies of the opposition leader Altynbek Sarsenbayev, his driver and bodyguard were discovered on February 13, 2006 in the outskirts of Almaty.

Nine people were found guilty of the crime and were sentenced to various prison terms. Chairman of the Senate Yerzhan Utembayev was found guilty of ordering the assassination and sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment. Rustam Ibragimov, the killer, was sentenced to the capital punishment. Since there is a moratorium on death penalty in Kazakhstan, Ibragimov will spend his life behind bars.
Meanwhile, in late 2013 the Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan announced that Ibragimov changed his testimony. The killer announced that it were Aliyev and Musayev who ordered the murder, not Utembayev. In January this year Kazakhstan Prosecutor's Office filed a motion to start a new investigation in the case against Aliyev and Musayev.

Aliyev, who was Kazakhstan's ambassador to Austria until 2007 and a former son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to a total of 40 years in prison for several grace crimes, including murder of two bankers, treason, and preparing a coup. The verdicts were handed out in absentia as Aliyev was hiding abroad since 2007.

Currently, Aliyev is under arrest in Austria’s capital Vienna. According to his lawyer, he handed himself in voluntarily to cooperate with the investigation on the kidnap and murder of two Kazakhstani bankers Zholdas Timraliyev and Aibar Khasenov.

For more information see:http://en.tengrinews.kz/crime/Kazakhstan-sends-evidences-of-Aliyevs-involvement-in-opposition-leader-murder-to-254137/
Use of the Tengrinews English materials must be accompanied by a hyperlink to en.Tengrinews.kz

BBC: Austria arrests top Kazakh dissident Rakhat Aliyev

Austrian police have arrested a leading opponent of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on suspicion of murder.
Lawyers for Rakhat Aliyev say he flew to Vienna voluntarily for questioning by Austrian investigators.
Mr Aliyev, a former son-in-law of Mr Nazarbayev, is wanted in Kazakhstan over the murder of two bankers, kidnapped in 2007 and later found dead.
Austria has twice refused to extradite him. He used to be Kazakh ambassador to Vienna. He denies the charges.
Mr Aliyev, who currently lives in Malta, fell out with the Kazakh president in 2007 and says the Kazakh accusations against him are politically motivated.
A businessman with wide contacts among the Kazakh elite, he spoke out against Mr Nazarbayev after being sacked as ambassador.
Austria has refused to extradite him because of concerns about human rights in the ex-Soviet Central Asian republic.
He was formerly married to Dariga Nazarbayeva, eldest daughter of Mr Nazarbayev, an authoritarian ruler who has cracked down hard on any dissent.
Austria opened its own investigation into Mr Aliyev in 2011.

Rakhat Aliyev arrested in Vienna

According to Malta Today, Kazakh exile Rakhat Aliyev has been arrested in Vienna, according to Austria Presse Agentur.

Citing Aliyev's lawyer Mandfred Ainedter, the reports says that Aliyev turned himself in to police voluntarily because he wanted to cooperate with the investigation.

An arrest warrant for the Kazakh leader's ex son-in-law was issued on May 19, 2014. Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck has not confirmed Aliyev's arrest so far.

Aliyev is under criminal prosecution in Austria over his alleged involvement in the murder of two bankers in 2008.

Furthermore, Aliyev has had his assets frozen by Maltese courts as part of a money laundering inquiry. The Maltese investigation is being conducted in parallel with a similar inquiry underway in Krefeld, Germany.

In March, the Criminal Court  issued a freezing order on the assets owned by Aliyev, in the first confirmed action that the embattled millionaire was being investigated over money laundering.

The freezing order was issued against Aliyev, 52, and his Austrian wife Elnara Shorazova, and a host of companies he is connected to.

The freezing order has been communicated to Banif Bank and Bank of Valletta, as well as the inland revenue and VAT departments, the public registry and the financial services authority, Ganado Trustees & Fiduciaries and Iuris Fiduciaries.

The order prohibits Aliyev and his wife Elnara Shorazova, and the companies mentioned, from transferring or otherwise disposing of any movable or immovable property.