Two associates of Rakhat Aliev, the deceased ex-son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev, went on trial in Austria on April 14 over the alleged killing of two bankers.
Former Kazakh intelligence chief Alnur Musaev and ex-presidential bodyguard Vadim Koshlyak are accused of aiding the abduction and slaying of two managers of Kazakhstan’s Nurbank in 2007.
At the hearing on April 14, prosecutors said that Aliev, Koschlyak, and Musaev were involved in the kidnapping, torturing, and killing of the bankers.
Musaev's lawyer, Martin Mahrer, called the charges "a pack of lies" by Kazakhstan's authoritarian regime.
The main suspect, Rakhat Aliev, was found hanged in a Vienna prison in February.
Aliev was earlier sacked from his post as Kazakhstan's ambassador to Austria and sentenced in absentia to 40 years in prison for organized crime and an attempted coup.
He denounced the Kazakh case against him as politically motivated.
Austria refused extradition requests by Astana and launched its own investigations.
