Italy's supreme Cassation Court ruled Wednesday that the deportation last year of the wife and daughter of a Kazakh dissident was "manifestly illegitimate".
Italy rescinded the deportation order after the May 31, 2013, expulsion of the wife of Kazakh oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, Alma Shalabayeva, and their six-year-old daughter Alua, who were seized in a nighttime raid and put on a private jet with Kazakh diplomats, was brought to light.
According to Shalabayeva, some 50 plain-clothes officers mistreated and verbally abused her and her daughter during the operation before turning the two over to the government of Kazakhstan, which has been criticized for human rights abuses. Ablyazov, who is wanted in Kazakhstan and Russia, is an outspoken critic of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev.
Kazakhstan claims Ablyazov, a banker, is not a dissident but an outlaw wanted for a multi-billion-euro embezzlement case at his BTA Bank. Shalabayeva and her daughter returned to Italy six months after their controversial deportation, which caused an international scandal.
They were able to leave Kazakhstan after the authorities in Astana last December lifted restrictions on their movements, following strenuous lobbying from former foreign minister Emma Bonino.
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