Alnur Mussayev

Who is Alnur Mussayev?

Alnur Mussayev was the former head of Kazakhstan's National Security Committee under the tenure of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. He served from May 1997 to September 1998, then returned for a second term from August 1999 to May 2001 after his predecessor Nurtai Abykayev was sacked in a scandal over the sale of old MiG fighter planes to North Korea.

In 2007, Mussayev fled Kazakhstan along with his former deputy Rakhat Aliyev to Vienna, Austria. Mussayev accused the government of widespread corruption and payments of millions of dollars in bribes by western oil companies to President Nazarbayev. The government of Kazakhstan has convicted him of crimes in absentia as a result of his defection.

An attempted kidnapping of Mussayev took place in Vienna in September 2008. The Austrian government declined comment on the perpetrators' origins at the time. In a January 2010 trial, defendant Ildar A., one of three men charged with the kidnap attempt on Mussayev, was found not guilty by an Austrian court. Mussayev described the verdict as "politically motivated" and an "attempt to please Kazakhstan".