Aliyev's former associates say he got his thrills from torturing people. He rendered them helpless, bound them in shackles, stretched them on a rack, and crucified one with rope and hooks.
They say he enjoyed whipping, applying electric shocks, breaking bones, and inflicting psychological torture on those who displeased him.
Murderer
Austria has Aliyev in custody for the torture-murders of two bankers whose corpses were stuffed in a metal drum. A murder investigation is underway into the 2004 death of his young mistress, who bore his daughter. To cover up the affair, Aliyev forced the woman to marry his cousin, who died mysteriously in Austria in 2005.A trail of dead bodies marks Rahmat Aliyev's career.
The first is that of Anastasiya Novikova, an impressionable young woman from Uzbekistan. She got a job as an announcer at Aliyev's TV network. Aliyev later brought her to be his mistress in Austria. There, in 2002 or 2003, the lovely 22 year-old became pregnant with Aliyev's child.
Because she wanted to keep the baby, Aliyev forced Anastasiya to marry someone under his control who could pretend to be the father: Daniyar Esten, his cousin – and his subordinate in the Kazakhstan diplomatic service.
But Anastasiya's presence remained an irritant and a threat to Aliyev's image. Through his networks as a leader of his country's global system of embassies, Aliyev had Anastasiya shipped off to Beirut, Lebanon, where she gave birth to the baby, a daughter she named Luiza – and where she was held captive, abused, tortured, beaten, and, on June 19, 2004, thrown off a balcony to her death.
Aliyev allegedly used Kazakhstan's diplomatic service to pressure Lebanese authorities to release Anastasiya's body quickly, so it could be evacuated aboard a chartered plane to Kazakhstan. There, Anastasiya's remains were hauled to a freshly dug pit in an otherwise abandoned, remote cemetery, and buried in an unmarked grave.
The following year, in 2005, Aliyev's loyal cousin and subordinate, Daniyar Esten, was killed in Austria in a mysterious traffic accident. Many believe Aliyev had Esten murdered to ensure his silence about Anastasiya and the baby.
Austrian authorities have not yet investigated.
Two years later, in 2007, after two executives from Aliyev's bank refused to sell him their shares at a fraction of their value, they wound up dead. According to an international arrest warrant and other evidence, Aliyev tortured and murdered them: Zholdas Temiraliev and Aybar Khasenov.
He had the bankers taken to a farmhouse he owned, where they were strapped to a medieval-style rack, tortured and beaten, and later killed.
Their bodies were stuffed in a steel drum, covered in lime to dissolve the remains, and secretly buried in a trash dump.
Aliyev's former associates helped authorities locate them. The grieving widows started a foundation to bring Aliyev to justice.
Germany's BND and America's FBI have independently followed Aliyev's evidence trail and affirm that the evidence is powerful enough to merit prosecution.
Anastasiya Novikova
Anastasiya Novikova's body was found on June 19, 2004, strewn across an iron fence nine stories below the balcony of the Hourani's apartment in Lebanon, where she had been held captive for months. Her body was found with multiple fractures, bruises, and burns, indicating long-term abuse before her death. Though the official story told by her former lover and the father of her child, Rakhat Aliyev, is that she committed suicide, further investigation indicated that the trajectory of her fall from the balcony reveals a much darker truth – that she was pushed.Novikova met Aliyev when she was an aspiring journalist and a presenter on a TV station owned by his media conglomerate. Aliyev at the time was a powerful businessman, and a rising star in Kazakhstan. Though Aliyev was already married, they became lovers, and she soon became pregnant, hoping to build a family. Aliyev, however, had other plans, and married her off to his cousin Daniyar Esten. (Esten was found dead under mysterious circumstances, as determined by Austrian police, in Vienna in 2005, a year after Novikova's death).
Under Aliyev's orders, Novikova was taken to Beirut, and held captive in an apartment owned by the Hourani brothers. Her five-month old baby was ripped from her arms; to further punish her, Aliyev forbade her from ever seeing her daughter again. Aliyev had told Esten that he would punish this way so that she would go crazy, and he could then put her in a mental hospital, according to Akimkulov's testimony.
Novikova's husband Esten and the Houranis served as her prison guards, as did two of Aliyev's other henchmen, Akimkulov and Fomaidi, both of whom later testified against Aliyev.
In his testimony, Akimkulov details the suffering Novikova endured in the apartment. Constantly monitored, she was not allowed on the apartment's balconies, and was forbidden to leave the apartment. The apartment building's concierge even testified during the investigation saying that she rarely came out of the apartment, much less the apartment complex. According to another testimony, that of Leonid Fomaidi, she was also under constant surveillance from video cameras that were installed in the apartment, so that – in Aliyev's words – "she could not escape". Fomaidi also described the orders he had received from Aliyev for setting up one of the bedroom – putting foam mattresses against the balcony door and windows, covering the windows with duct tape "so that neither sound nor light would come through". He would later realize that this would be the room in which Aliyev would torture her, where he would beat her, whip her, drug her and rape her, over and over again.
According to Fomaidi's testimony, when Esten arrived in Beirut, Aliyev ordered him to continually demean and physically assault Novikova; he also instructed Esten to continually sexually violate and rape her in the torture room.
She was found dead on June 19th, 2004.
Sarsenbayev & Associates
Altynbek Sarsenbayev, a Kazakh political figure, was gunned down in February of 2006, along with his assistant and driver. Rustam Ibragimov, a businessman serving life in prison for carrying out the killings, confessed to the murders in an April 2012 petition to the Kazakh Supreme Court and accused Aliyev of ordering the attack.Timraliyev and Khasenov
The bodies of two Nurbank executives, Zholdas Timraliyev and Aybar Khasenov, were found in 2011, buried near one of Aliyev's properties outside of Almaty.Testimony from Nurbank's CEO, Abilmazhan Gilimov, who had been abducted by Aliyev, stated that Aliyev had kidnapped him, Timraliyev and Khasenov and taken them to his farmhouse to be tortured. They were then stretched out on a homemade rack and beaten by Aliyev. Police say that investigators have gathered DNA and other physical evidence that prove the bankers were held at Aliyev's farmhouse and also have eye-witness testimonies from former bodyguards.
A week before their abduction, the three victims had been called to a meeting with Aliyev and detained at gunpoint until they had agreed to sign over their stake in a bank property at well below market price. The Ken Dala business center in Almaty was worth about 80 million euros at that time, but the three bank executives were coerced into selling the property to Aliyev well below market value.
Though Gilimov was released, Timraliyev and Khasenov were held drugged in an undisclosed location and then taken to an unknown destination.
They were declared missing in 2007. Their bodies were discovered in 2011. The bodies had been tucked into a metal drum, assailed with chalk and buried on a waste dump. Aliyev was tried in absentia for their murders and was found guilty by the court.
To this day, the widows of the two bankers continue their campaign to bring their husbands' killer to justice. Their campaign can be accessed here:
Racketeer
Rakhat Aliyev allegedly ran transnational criminal rackets that include international money laundering, extortion, kidnapping, torture and murder. He used his diplomatic immunity for his own criminal purposes. Tried and convicted in his home country, he is alleged to have committed crimes across Europe and the Middle East.Torturer
Aliyev has a fetish for torture. Several of his former associates and accomplices say that he enjoyed heaping his victims with humiliation and psychological abuse, tying them down on medieval-style racks and in one case, crucifying the victim with hooks and ropes. He seemed to get a thrill from beating his helpless captives, breaking their bones, slashing their flesh with whips, and electrocuting them.
In 2000 and 2001, Aliyev personally tortured two of his bodyguards, Satzhev Ibraev and Pyotr Afanasenko, to force false confessions that his political opponent, former Prime Minister Akezhan Kazegeldin, was plotting to overthrow the government.Ibraev and Afanasenko presented sworn affidavits in 2012 claiming that Aliyev imprisoned them for over four months in "inhumane conditions," tortured them, and threatened them with further violence and death.
Aliyev's accomplices "threatened to arrest my wife and inflict violence on her," Ibraev recalls. "They threatened to pursue my children and close relatives. Furthermore, the investigators and operatives did not conceal that they were acting on personal orders from Rakhat Aliyev, who had instructed them to do whatever was necessary to extract a confession from me that would allow a warrant for the arrest of Akezhan Kahegeldin."
Afanasenko also claims in his affidavit that Aliyev told him that if he didn't testify that Kazhegeldin was planning a coup, "my daughters [would] be pumped full of drugs and raped."
After impregnating his young mistress, Anastasiya Novikova, in 2003, Aliyev arranged for her to be exiled and held captive in Beirut, Lebanon, where he personally abused, beat, raped and drugged her, and instructed subordinates to do the same. Witnesses say that Novikova was handcuffed to the wall, tied to hooks as a form of crucifixion, beaten to the point of breaking her bones, drugged, and raped, before she was thrown from a 9th floor balcony to her death.
In 2007, Aliyev tortured at least two executives of Nurbank, a bank of which he was de facto owner. He had them taken to a remote house where the men were bound to a medieval-style rack, on which they were beaten and electrocuted. Aliyev is now in Austrian custody relating to that case.
Kidnapper
Aliyev was tied to the kidnapping of a Russian TV executive in the 1990s. He illegally imprisoned some of his own subordinates. He is wanted on international warrants for kidnapping three bankers. He arranged for the illegal imprisonment of a young woman he impregnated, and later punished her by kidnapping their baby girl.
Credible allegations that Aliyev kidnapped and illegally imprisoned people date back more than a decade. In 2003, he forced Anastasiya Novikova, the young woman whom he had impregnated, to marry his cousin against her will and to live under the control of his accomplices in Beirut, Lebanon. He had their daughter kidnapped from the mother in 2004 before the mother was killed.In 2007, Aliyev abducted three Nurbank executives in order to defraud them of their shares and to extort money from Nurbank's assets and holdings. Authorities in his home country charged him with abduction and extortion in 2007, and Interpol circulated an international warrant for Aliyev on charges of criminal association, economic crimes and kidnapping.
Rakhat Aliyev was the head of what a court in Almaty, Kazakhstan, termed a "well-organized criminal group aiming at kidnapping people and taking possession of assets through extortion, theft and use of forged documents."
In June, 2014, Aliyev surrendered to Austrian authorities to face criminal charges that included kidnapping and murder.
Extortionist
When he was a major general in his country's KGB, Aliyev ran an extortion operation that included kidnapping, torture and murder. After being convicted in absentia in his home country, Aliyev is in Austrian custody pending investigation of two of the extortion-related murders. The FBI has identified Aliyev as the prime suspect.Aliyev abused his positions of power to build a huge financial and media empire. He wasn't content to build his fortune peacefully in Kazakhstans' frontier economy, but used intimidation and extortion to take over other people's business interests.
As Chief of the Tax Police in the late 1990s, Aliyev extorted money from businesses, claiming they had evaded the tax authorities. He and his cronies demanded increasingly large payments from companies across a range of industries, and eventually wrested control and ownership from shareholders.
While rising up the ranks to become a leading official head of the Kazakh KGB, Aliyev used his power to become wealthier and wealthier.
Ultimately, his crimes would catch up with him. Once the Kazakh government took notice and levied criminal charges, some of Aliyev's former associates testified against him.
In May, 2007, during his second stint as ambassador to Austria, Kazakhstan authorities charged Aliyev with a range of crimes, including extortion against executives of Nurbank, a bank of which he was de facto owner. In that instance, Aliyev tried to force the executives to sell him their ownership shares in the bank for a fraction of their value. When they refused, he had them tortured and murdered.
In May of 2007, charges were brought against Aliyev for extortion and kidnapping following his former associate Akimkulov's testimony against him and further investigation into the case of the Nurbank executives.
After being convicted in absentia in his home country, Austria is holding Aliyev pending investigation of two of the extortion-related murders. The FBI has identified Aliyev as the prime suspect.
Money Launderer
Aliyev allegedly used a network of shell companies to ship cash out of Kazakhstan to Lebanon, and then launder it to Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Panama and elsewhere. He used his Austrian wife as a cutout. Authorities in Germany and Malta are investigating his money laundering in their countries.After abusing his authority as a senior government official through extortion and other crimes, Aliyev amassed a fortune in hard currency that he had to ship out of Kazakhstan and launder to hide its origin.
He called on his Lebanese-KazkhKazakh brother-in-law, Issam Salah Hourani, and Issam's brother Devincci Salah Hourani, for help in laundering his illegally taken cash. Aliyev allegedly transferred hundreds of millions of dollars to companies that the Houranis set up in Lebanon and elsewhere.
From Lebanon, Aliyev laundered the money through a network of shell companies in Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Panama, Malta, Germany and the United Kingdom.
After losing his diplomatic immunity in Austria, Aliyev fled to the Malta to run his operations through his new wife, a citizen of Austria.
An attorney for the widows of the Nurbank executives murdered in Kazakhstan mapped out a complex network of transaction flows and submitted the widows' claim to Maltese authorities.
"In the first step, money was fed via two offshore companies, AV Maximus SA and Argocom Ltd into another company, A.V. Maximus Holding AG," they stated in a detailed legal brief. "That money was then channeled into subsidiaries Armoreal GmbH and S.T.A.R.T. Management Consulting GmbH. In the second step, loans were granted between the subsidiaries, with large amounts going to the German company Metallwerke Bender Rheinland, partly via ITR GmbH. In the third step, the money flowed back to A.V. Maximus SA or, via A.V. Maximus Holding AG, to Maltese and Caribbean enterprises. The Austrian A.V. Maximus Holding was owned by a Maltese company, A & P Power Ltd, which was itself owned by Nevis-registered A + P Power Holdings Ltd."
Elnara Shorazova, Aliyev's Austrian wife, fronted for Aliyev as the beneficiary/owner of the Maltese companies.
German lawyers Danckert Spiller Richter Barlein submitted a separate claim to the Maltese authorities on money laundering grounds. They claimed that Aliyev had laundered over €100 million to Malta in criminal gains.
As a result of the Maltese investigation into Aliyev's illegal activities, his assets have been frozen, as well as those of his wife, one of his children and a number of their Maltese companies. Over €40 million in assets could have been frozen.
In 2012, Germany authorities also started their own investigation in Germany against Aliyev in regards to his purchase of Metallwerke Bender Rheinland. The German authorities believe that around "100 cases worth €9.56 million were transferred via Bender between 2005 and 2007 when Aliyev lived in Austria."
That may be just the beginning of the story, as international investigators – including the FBI – continue their probe.
Several official and investigative reports confirm the mafia men's illicit activities across the world, whether it is their association with terrorist regimes or their association with other criminals. There have also been allegations of Issam Hourani's involvement in drug smuggling.
Collaboration with Terrorist Regimes
An Interpol report about Issam Hourani stated, "It is believed that he deals in suspicious operations abroad and that he has links with terrorist groups."In addition, it has been documented that both the Hourani brothers have strong ties to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and his son, Yasser Abbas, and have often acted on behalf of the PA.
Both Houranis were granted honorary diplomatic passports by the PA.
The Israeli government initiated an inquiry into why the passports were issued and Israeli security agencies initiated a broader investigation into the Hourani brothers.
In 2012, Devincci Hourani, with the help of the Palestinian Ambassador to Sudan, secured several oil contracts through his company Caratube International Oil Company (CIOC).
The deals were a violation of the US sanctions imposed on the Sudanese government for its genocide in Darfur and other crimes against humanity.
Association with Suspected Terrorist Networks
Khodyr Yatim works closely with the Hourani brothers as an employee for their company Caratube International Oil Company (CIOC) and is also considered a longtime personal friend. He is reputed to be a staunch supporter of the Assad regime in Syria, and a supporter of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group.Khalil Mahmoud Hawari is another close confidante and business partner of the Houranis who has links to terrorism.
The United States government takes his ties so seriously that it denied him entry to the country, on Terrorism Related Inadmissibility Grounds.
Drug Smuggling
The Attorney General of Lebanon requested information on Issam Hourani due to his alleged illicit activities in the country and abroad.The Interpol report that was produced at the request of the Attorney General details a long-term investigation of Hourani's illicit activities, stating that "he is the subject of a drug case from 1991." Other reports say that Hourani was arrested in 1991 for bringing illegal drugs into Lebanon.
The Mafia
Aliyev has a network of accomplices. Some of them are active in Europe and around the world. The Hourani brothers who own a flat in London's prestigious Lowndes Square also own a flat in Beirut – the very apartment where the mother of Aliyev's daughter was held captive, tortured and killed.Rakhat Aliyev's brother-in-law, Issam Hourani serves as not only one of Aliyev's primary business partners, but also as one of his closest confidantes. As such, he has bloodied his hands cleaning up many of Aliyev's messes, most notably, that of Novikova's murder.
The Hourani brothers own the apartment in which Novikova was imprisoned for several years, as well as many lavish properties across the world, financed from their work with Aliyev and other such deviant characters. Along with properties in Lebanon and the US, the Hourani brothers own a £7.5m apartment in one of London's most expensive areas, Belgravia's Lowndes Square. The Houranis also have strong ties to the PA's Mahmoud Abbas,
the father of their business associate and long-time friend, Yasser Abbas. It is through Abbas that they received special Palestinian diplomatic passports and other diplomatic privileges, such as immunity
Rakhat Aliyev
The former ambassador to Austria, Rakhat Aliyev has been on the run for years, fleeing an international arrest warrant on charges of extortion, money laundering, kidnapping and murder.Aliyev was considered a very important person in Kazakhstan. At the end of the 1990s he became the head of the tax fraud investigation office. Shortly after, he became deputy chief of the Kazakh secret service formerly known as the KGB. He was accused then of torturing people to extract false confessions.
He owned a media empire of TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, Internet services and advertisement companies. He was de facto owner of a bank called Nurbank, and held property and business interests in Kazakhstan's agricultural sector, especially the sugar industry.
Aliyev seemed to have his finger in every pie. Gradually, his tactics to expand his power and influence became more and more violent. He illegally raised his own paramilitary militia. His opponents were systematically intimidated or silenced.
He was twice named Kazakhstan's Ambassador to Austria, where former associates say he used his diplomatic status to engage in international criminal activity. He expanded that activity between his ambassadorial posts as a senior official in his country's diplomatic service, which he used as his own criminal racket.
In 2007, Aliyev was dismissed as ambassador in relation to the extortion-related murders of two of his bankers, and tried in absentia for his crimes. His wife had divorced him and he was cut off from her politically powerful family. His own son effectively disowned him, taking his mother's maiden name as his surname.
Aliyev then portrayed himself in Europe as a political dissident and human rights victim.
The evidence tells another story.
This website presents that evidence.
Aliyev's many accomplices include his brother-in-law, Issam Salah Hourani, and Issam's brother, Devincci Salah Hourani.
The Hourani brothers helped keep the young woman Aliyev had impregnated, Anastasiya Novikova, captive in Beirut. They own the Beirut apartment where Anastasiya was imprisoned, tortured, raped and murdered.
Issam Hourani
Rakhat Aliyev's brother-in-law, Issam Hourani, serves as not only one of Aliyev's primary business partners, but also as one of his closest confidantes. As such, he has bloodied his hands cleaning up many of Aliyev's crimes, most notably the murder of Anastasiya Novikova, the young mother of Aliyev's child.
The Hourani brothers own the apartment in which Anastasiya Novikova was imprisoned and tortured during her last months of life, as well as many lavish properties across the world.The Hourani properties are financed from their work with Aliyev and others. Along with properties in Lebanon and the US, the Hourani brothers own a £7.5 million apartment in one of London's most expensive areas, Belgravia's Lowndes Square.
The Houranis also have strong ties to Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Territory, former head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and the father of their business associate and long-time friend, Yasser Abbas.
It is through Abbas that they received special Palestinian diplomatic passports that provided them diplomatic immunity.
In June 2010, Issam Hourani was sent to Lebanon on an official mission on behalf of the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the Palestinian Embassy in Beirut.
Approximately one year later, as a result of Issam's assistance, Mahmood Abbas hoisted the flag of "the state of Palestine" in Beirut as he inaugurated the Palestinian Embassy.
The Hourani brothers have been working with Yasser Abbas on business deals all over the world, including in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, and Sudan. Yasser Abbas worked with Devincci Hourani to pursue an oil business in Sudan called Caratube International Oil Company (CIOC), after having received help from the Palestinian Authority Ambassador to Sudan to win three oil blocks on behalf of CIOC.
CIOC, owned by Devincci Hourani, a US national, violated US federal law by engaging with the Sudanese oil industry due to sanctions placed on the Sudanese regime for its crimes against humanity related to the genocide in Darfur.
Devincci Hourani
Issam's brother and another close partner of Aliyev, Devincci Hourani continues to serve as one of Aliyev's henchmen.The Hourani brothers own the apartment in which Anastasiya Novikova was imprisoned and tortured during her last months of life, as well as many lavish properties across the world.
The Hourani properties are financed from their work with Aliyev and others. Along with properties in Lebanon and the US, the Hourani brothers own a £7.5 million apartment in one of London's most expensive areas, Belgravia's Lowndes Square.
The Houranis also have strong ties to Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Territory, former head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and the father of their business associate and long-time friend, Yasser Abbas.
It is through Abbas that they received special Palestinian diplomatic passports that provided them diplomatic immunity.
In June 2010, Issam Hourani was sent to Lebanon on an official mission on behalf of the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the Palestinian Embassy in Beirut.
Approximately one year later, as a result of Issam's assistance, Mahmood Abbas hoisted the flag of "the state of Palestine" in Beirut as he inaugurated the Palestinian Embassy.
The Hourani brothers have been working with Yasser Abbas on business deals all over the world, including in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, and Sudan. Yasser Abbas worked with Devincci Hourani to pursue an oil business in Sudan called Caratube International Oil Company (CIOC), after having received help from the Palestinian Authority Ambassador to Sudan to win three oil blocks on behalf of CIOC.
CIOC, owned by Devincci Hourani, a US national, violated US federal law by engaging with the Sudanese oil industry due to sanctions placed on the Sudanese regime for its crimes against humanity related to the genocide in Darfur.
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