ASTANA, June 7 (RAPSI) - Alma Shalabayeva, the wife of former board chairman of BTA Bank Mukhtar Ablyazov, has been handed down a non-custodial sentence, Deputy Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan Iogann Merkel told journalists.

"A case was opened on charges of using a fake passport," he said. "If memory serves, she has been issued a non-custodial sentence."

The Deputy Prosecutor General refused to comment on the ongoing search for Ablyazov.

In early June, Mukhtar Ablyazov's wife and daughter were deported from Italy to Kazakhstan for holding false passports. Shalabayeva is currently living in Almaty on recognizance not to leave.

Kazakhstan is seeking Ablyazov's extradition. He fled to the UK after the Kazakh government acquired a stake in BTA in 2009 and the bank came under the control of its sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna. He was granted political asylum in Britain in 2011.

In 2009, BTA filed a suit on the alleged embezzlement of $6 billion by its former top managers in the London High Court. In May 2011, the court accepted the bank's complaints against former board chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov. In February 2012, it ruled in absentia to detain Ablyazov for 22 months for contempt of court and deprived him of the right to defend his interests.

Ablyazov has since disappeared and is believed to have fled the UK.

He maintains that the charges against him are politically motivated and refuses to disclose his whereabouts.