Towards a new Kazakhgate: Saving Private Massimov

From left to right: Madina Abllyazova (daughter of the oligarch), her father Mukhtar Ablyazov, Lyudmila Kozlovska (ODF) and Pier-Antonio Panzeri – European Parliament - 2017

This July 28, 2023, we revealed that a Brussels-based NGO suspected of being funded by a fugitive Kazakh oligarch was accused by Ukraine of defending Russian interests, even as Brussels is fully committed to supporting Kyiv. In this second part, we go even further in our investigation - writes Paul Ymepatraux in PAN

The traitorous oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, we wrote, denies being the secret financier of the Open Dialogue Foundation (ODF). The ODF too. Of which act, Justice will perhaps one day say what it is. But some things cannot be denied. Among other things, the fact that Lyudmila Kozlovskaya, the director of the ODF, has defended Ablyazov for years. To do so, it was able to benefit from numerous supports in the European Parliament. We also find the Belgian MEP Mari Arena ...

Among all these friends of circumstance, there is undoubtedly one that the protagonists of this affair would prefer to forget. The ineffable Pier-Antonio Panzeri, well known now for having created the corrupt central which is at the heart of the Qatargate investigation, spared no effort to defend the one he presented as an unfortunate opponent unjustly persecuted by Kazakhstan. Chance, no doubt. Still, Panzeri received Ablyazov and Kozlovskaya at the Strasbourg headquarters of the European Parliament in May 2019, as evidenced by the photograph we are publishing.

Facts revealed to judge Michel Claise, but without reaction

Another indisputable fact: a Kazakh lawyer who has taken refuge in Brussels, Botagoz Jardemalie, who was closely associated with Ablyazov at the time of his embezzlement (it should be emphasized, however, that she was never convicted or even charged in this context) very recently became an official ODF lobbyist in the European Parliament. However, in 2019, Ms Jardemalie took part, in a place of honour, in a “hearing” organized by Panzeri at the European Parliament on human rights. The world is definitely small…

Two dates, therefore, at least: 2017 and 2019. It is starting to go up a little, of course, but it is still not antediluvian. Knowing the attraction of Panzeri (who, having benefited from the status of "repentant" is in confession) for easy money, and given that, according to his own words, he had begun to lay the foundations of what was to become his flagship (the NGO "Fight Impunity") in the organization of corruption in the European Parliament while he was still a member of this estimable institution, it is permissible to wonder about the exact motivations which were his when he was defending the wealthy fugitive (convicted, let's remember, in the United Kingdom).

We can reveal today that the proximity between Panzeri, the ODF and Ablyazov had been revealed to judge Michel Claise as early as December 13, 2022, in an electronic message sent by a good connoisseur of the file. No reaction. The judge probably had too much to do. Let's move on.

A “hearing” on human rights, at the Brussels headquarters of the European Parliament: in the centre, Pier-Antonio Panzeri, second from the right (and on-screen), Botagoz Jardemalie - February 19, 2019

Where we find Maria Arena

Panzeri's interest in Kazakhstan didn't stop with Mukhtar Ablyazov. Much more recently, just a few months before his arrest, in the summer of 2022, our man took a liking to another “victim” of the Kazakh regime: the former head of the secret services Karim Massimov.

Karim Massimov had a brilliant career that took him from business to politics, then to the management of his country's secret service, the KNB. Prime Minister from 2007 to 2012, then from 2014 to 2016, head of the presidential administration between his two appointments to the post of head of government, he was placed, in 2016, at the head of the National Security Committee. A position he hled until the beginning of January 2022.

Massimov has since been arrested and later sentenced to 18 years in prison for high treason, accused of trying to overthrow President Tokayev in January 2022.

Everyone, of course, has the right to be defended and it was not illegitimate to worry about the conditions of detention and the appearance of Karim Massimov. But we can still find more emblematic cases of a "human rights defender" to promote than that of a man who did not hesitate to violate these rights when he was at the head of the government, then of the KNB. The dispersal of small demonstrations, the banning of independent media, the persecution of opponents and other arbitrary arrests were commonplace. For example, in 2015, “Human Rights Watch” wrote: “Kazakhstan severely restricts freedom of assembly, expression and religion. In 2014, authorities shut down newspapers, jailed or fined dozens of people after peaceful protests, and persecuted believers for practising their religion outside state control. »

So this is the man – also closely associated with the corruption of former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev – whom Panzeri and his associates had decided to transform into a “martyr of freedom”.

And Panzeri was able to count on strong support. That of Maria Arena, who had succeeded her at the head of the Human Rights Sub-Committee (DROI) in the European Parliament… In November 2022, Maria Arena wrote to the Ambassador of Kazakhstan in Brussels (a copy of this letter is in our possession) to ask him for the "immediate and unconditional release of Mr Karim Massimov".

It is quite possible that Mrs Arena, who we know was strongly influenced by Pier-Antonio Panzeri, was abused by him. But it is worth recalling here that in an arrest warrant linked to Qatargate, Judge Michel Claise described Maria Arena as belonging to "a quartet [of MEPs] acting on Panzeri's orders".

In short, this story is a real bag of knots, in which Belgian justice refuses, for obscure reasons, to put its nose. It might be good, however, to do so. And quickly. The ODF and Mrs. Kozlovskaya have recently extended their activities to the United States where they claim to defend the Ukrainian cause. But, as the specialized media “Intelligence Online” noted a few weeks ago, neither is mandated or financed by any authority in Kyiv. SO? Who pays? Inevitably, all eyes turn to Ablyazov again…

Maybe this whole affair is just a web of coincidences. Perhaps the suspicions about ODF, Kozlovskaya or Jardemaly are unfounded (for Ablyazov, in any case, we know that they are not, as in the case of the corruptor Panzeri).

As we wrote yesterday, it is in the interest of Belgium, the seat of the two most important Western institutions, to clarify this matter. Otherwise, if a scandal breaks out one day, it will be necessary to render accounts.

Paul Ymepatraux, PAN

Editor's note: With the exception of Mukhtar Ablyazov, convicted on several occasions, and Pier-Antonio Panzeri, in confessions of corruption, all the persons cited in this investigation are currently presumed innocent

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