WASHINGTON, November 6 (RIA Novosti) – The president of Kazakhstan’s brother has been accused of faking illness to avoid attending court in a fraught multimillion-dollar legal battle, the New York Daily News has reported.
Bolat Nazarbayev, the older sibling of the Central Asian nation’s leader, filed a lawsuit in New York against his ex-wife in 2012, alleging she transferred the deed to a $20 million Manhattan apartment to her name and spent $75 million of his money on jewelry.
Maira Nazarbayeva says, however, that failure by her ex-husband to attend court hearings because of health complaints she insists are unsubstantiated should lead to the case being thrown out of court, the New York Daily News reported earlier this week.
“It is my belief that this medical condition is fabricated in an effort to circumvent the rules of this honorable court,” Nazarbayeva said in a sworn affidavit, referring to a wide array of ailments, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and liver disease.
In support of her case, Nazarbayeva produced a translated copy of an interview with Bolat Nazarbayev with Kazakh magazine Adam in which he described his health as “fine.”
Adam is published by a flamboyant opponent to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s regime, Guljan Yergaliyeva.
Lawyers for Bolat Nazarbayev dismissed the article, published in June, as hearsay and said it had no relevance to his health condition as of September 26.
Nazarbayev’s legal team has asked Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Eileen Bransten to delay the case until their client’s health improved.
Nazerbayeva has described the suit as bogus and says her former husband’s only intention was to harass and embarrass her, the New York Daily News reported Monday.
Several members of Nursultan Nazarbayev’s family, including his three daughters and sons-in-law, have amassed vast fortunes in the more than two decades he has ruled over the resource-rich former Soviet republic.
While Bolat Nazarbayev’s feud has made tabloid headlines in the United States, the story has gained almost no traction in Kazakhstan, where media is tightly controlled by the government.
