France withdrew refugee status in December from Kazakh opponent Mukhtar Abliazov, whose fears of persecution in Kazakhstan are real but whose actions as a former banker "constitute a serious crime", indicated Wednesday the National Court of Asylum.
Minister then fierce opponent of Noursultan Nazarbayev, who remained in power for three decades, Mukhtar Abliazov is accused by Kazakhstan of having embezzled 7.5 billion dollars from the time he was the CEO of the local bank BTA, before its nationalization in 2009.
In exile for several years, he had obtained refugee status in 2020 from the National Court of Asylum (CNDA), which acts as a court of appeal for first instance decisions of the Ofpra (French Office for protection of refugees and stateless persons).
But the Ofpra, which had therefore initially rejected his asylum application, had challenged the CNDA's decision with the Council of State, which asked the Court to reopen the file.
Read alsoMukhtar Abliazov, the Kazakh political refugee who was worth seven billion dollars
In a decision dated December 8 and first revealed by Le
Canard Enchaîné
,
"the CNDA admitted the well-founded fears (...) of persecution on political grounds, because of its opposition to the Kazakh regime, but excluded him from the benefit of refugee status”
, confirmed the Court to AFP.
The CNDA indicated that it relied on Article 1F of the Geneva Convention to justify this withdrawal: this article provides for exclusion clauses from refugee status for people who have committed "serious" acts (crimes, terrorism ...), to prevent the statute from allowing criminals to escape justice.
In the case of Mukhtar Abliazov,
"there are serious reasons to believe that he is (...) the author of large-scale embezzlement, constituting a serious crime under ordinary law",
underlined the CNDA.
In 2016, the Council of State refused her extradition, considering that she had been requested
"for a political purpose"
.
Mukhtar Abliazov had also been charged on October 7, 2020 in Paris for “aggravated breach of trust and aggravated money laundering”, facts which were deemed prescribed by the investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal, in early 2022, resulting in the discontinuance of the charges.
The Attorney General of Paris immediately lodged an appeal in cassation to try to revive them.
