MOSCOW, March 21 - RAPSI. The Moscow City Court has declared lawful the seizure of two land parcels in the criminal case against former BTA bank Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov.
Although the land belongs to Eurasia Realty, the prosecutor said the plots were owned by a company controlled by Ablyazov when the Tverskoy District Court in Moscow decided to seize them.
Eurasia Realty said the land has nothing to do with the individuals indicated in the case materials and alleged that the court failed to produce reasons and evidence supporting their seizure. BTA representative Oleg Nikiforov agreed. Nikiforov said 41 land plots have been seized in the case, but asked to release these two.
According to the Investigative Committee, in 2006-2008, Ablyazov used Eurasia and Eurasia Logistics, which were under his control, to raise BTA loans for other companies amounting to over 776.4 million rubles ($26 million), 19 million euro and more than $1.4 billion, although he never planned to repay them.
Investigators believe BTA sustained unprecedented losses entailing such grave consequences as the bank's restructuring under Kazakh bankruptcy law.
Ablyazov has been in the UK since 2009. He is under investigation for fraud and bank assets stripping via fly-by-night companies.
A Moscow district court issued an arrest warrant for Ablyazov in absentia on charges of large-scale fraud in October 2010.
Kazakhstan's Prosecutor General's Office applied for his extradition in January 2011.