PERUGIA -- The public prosecutor’s office of this Umbrian city have closed investigations into the case of the wife and daughter of the prominent Kazakh dissident Mukhtar Ablyazov, who had both previously been controversially deported from Italian territory, judicial sources said Monday.

 The deportation of Ablyazov’s wife and daughter caused furore due to accusations that it was carried out by Italian authorities as a favour to the Kazakh president. Perugia’s public prosecutor’s office has now accused seven police officers, a Justice of the peace magistrate, and three Kazakh diplomats of falsifying public documents, retaining information, abuse of office and kidnapping.

 The two Kazakhs were arrested by police forces during a blitz of Casal Palocco, where they were residing, March 29, 2013, after the police failed to find Mukhtar Ablyazov, wanted by the ex Soviet state for alleged embezzlement of over six billion dollars from the bank BTA, of which he was former chairman.

 In an email interview with La Stampa, Ablyazov accused the Italian government of playing a hand in the kidnap of his wife and child, saying, “They were deported in a hurry because the agents wanted to avoid judges, prosecutors and the media from discovering what had happened. All this happened because the dictator Nazarbayev wanted to have two hostages against his major political opponent. He was able to get them thanks to the Italian authorities.”

 In June 2013, the interior minister's private secretary Giuseppe Procaccini announced his resignation over the controversial deportation, as he was thought to have met with the Kazakh ambassador Andrian Yelemessov to talk about the opponent Ablyazov. The case thus involved the interior minister Angelino Alfano, who was subject to interrogation and to a motion of no confidence that was then rejected by parliament.

 The notice of the closure of this case was given to the former chief of Rome’s Flying squad Renato Cortese, now head of the Police Central Operations service, and to the former manager of the Immigration Office Maurizio Improta, now commissioner of Rimini.

 The criminal accusation of kidnapping has been contested by the former ambassador Andrian Yelemessov and two functionaries, who all benefit from diplomatic immunity so cannot be taken to trial.

 nkd