Kazakh banker fighting for regime change

(15 Dec 2016) Freshly freed from a French prison after years fighting embezzlement charges, Kazakh banker Mukhtar Ablyazov is pursuing what he calls his "life goal": regime change in his energy-rich Central Asian country.
The prospect looks dim. Kazakhstan is under the 27-year grip of a president who brooks little dissent and is close to Russia's Vladimir Putin.
And many Kazakhs see Ablyazov as a corrupt tycoon who allegedly stole billions and fled into cosseted exile in London manors and a Cote d'Azur villa.
Yet Ablyazov is undeterred, hoping to stir up anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian sentiment among his compatriots.
He's emboldened by a decision last week by France's top administrative court, which ruled Friday against his extradition to Russia over the embezzlement charges, calling the request politically motivated.
That's what Ablyazov has argued all along, ever since Kazakhstan's government nationalized his bank, BTA, in 2009.
He sees himself as a martyr unfairly targeted by a totalitarian regime, a Kazakh version of long-jailed Russian magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The French court ruling, Ablyazov said, sends a message to autocrats who "pursue dissidents and opposition leaders with artificial criminal cases.
He set up an opposition party in 2001, and was soon imprisoned for abuse of public office.
He was freed after promising to stay out of politics - but soon started financing the opposition again while building up BTA, one of the region's biggest banks.
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