Kenes Rakishev denies paying for "Legion d'Honneur

On 10 August 2022, we published an article which reported that Kenes Rakishev had paid Fabian Baussart a substantial sum of money to obtain the ‘Legion d’Honneur’. This article was a republish of an article that originally appeared in the French media.

We now accept that Mr Rakishev does not hold the ‘Legion d’Honneur’, that there is no evidence to support this and that he did not engage Mr Baussart or any other individual to assist him to obtain it. That article also reported that Mr Rakishev is a “confidant” of Ramzan Kadyrov and may risk US sanctions as a result.  We now accept that Mr Rakishev has had no contact with Mr Kadyrov since 2016 – over a year prior to sanctions being imposed by U.S. Treasury Department in December 2017.

Further, we accept that Mr Rakishev fully condemns the actions of Mr Kadyrov that led to him being sanctioned and in no way endorses any of his actions since. We apologise to Mr Rakishev for the errors in our article and are happy to set the record straight.

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