BTA Bank managed to return $ 1.4 billion from $ 4.8 billion, which the British court ordered to pay former Kazakh businessman Mukhtar Ablyazov in favor of a lending institution. This was reported by the head of the press service of BTA Bank JSC Eldar Shamsutdinov. According to him, most of the returned amount is a costly asset - some apartments from a runaway oligarch found more than 900 around the world, indicates "Italics. kz ". However, until compensation is a drop in the sea compared to the capital that Ablyazov illegally withdrew from the country. Recall, Mukhtar Ablyazov was the head of BTA Bank - one of the largest banks in Kazakhstan. As the media reported, he received control of the bank after his predecessor was accidentally shot on the hunt. Prior to this, Ablyazov had already been imprisoned in Kazakhstan for economic crimes, but was pardoned. It is strange that he was allowed to engage in banking activities. After the fraud was uncovered in the bank, in 2009. the banker left the country, settling first in the UK, and then moving to France. On the Cote d'Azur, he was arrested in 2013. at the request of British detectives engaged in the investigation of the claim of Kazakhstan on embezzlement Ablyazov more than $ 7.5 billion from 2005 to 2009. As the investigation found out, the banker "fraudulently provided loans without guarantees to front companies, in which he was a real economic beneficiary". The High Court of England found Astana's demands fair, and the evidence of the guilt of a runaway businessman was exhaustive. Therefore, in 2015. made a decision to freeze assets directly or indirectly owned by Mukhtar Ablyazov and his representative Ilyas Khrapunov. And in 2016 g. The Commercial Court of England and Wales ordered Khrapunov to disclose all the information he had about Ablyazov's assets. However, Khrapunov refused to comply with this requirement. This made it difficult to return the stolen funds to BTA, since almost all of the assets of the Kazakh oligarch were registered for dummies. Three years of French government thought how to enter. However, at the end of 2016. decided not to pay attention to the lawsuit of Kazakhstan, to the requests of Russia and Ukraine on the extradition of the suspect (there is no corresponding agreement between Astana and Paris) and even the opinion of London. Ablyazov was released from prison, his name was deleted from Interpol's lists, and extradition was refused. In Paris, they believed the businessman that he was being persecuted not for an economic crime, but for political reasons. It should be noted that throughout the last years the oligarch, while abroad, criticized the current power in Kazakhstan and spoke about the intention to overthrow the permanent leader of the republic Nursultan Nazarbayev. Meanwhile, in June 2017. in Kazakhstan Ablyazov was sentenced in absentia on the fact of large theft for 20 years in prison. Realizing that a runaway banker can not wait on his territory, the Kazakh side filed a lawsuit in Paris, counting on the local authorities to force the fugitive to be punished for "money-laundering under aggravating circumstances" in accordance with their legislation and in their own French prison. To, as they say, no one doubted. Moreover, the Penal Code of the Fifth Republic allows an alien to be tried for an offense committed outside France, if the request for his extradition is rejected for political reasons. The answer of Paris is not yet known. However, Ablyazov himself does not sit idly by.

He decided to force France to pay for his three-year stay behind bars. In addition, his defense insists that local judges were at one time bribed by Astana. This issue is now to be considered by the court of first instance in Paris. Note that a similar claim, but in the framework of criminal law, the proceedings in Lyon recently closed in "due to the absence of corpus delicti". Ablyazov's representatives have already stated that they will appeal against this decision.