The former ambassador of Kazakhstan to Austria, Rakat Aliyev, was found dead in a prison in Vienna after committing suicide, the spokeswoman of the court announced today.
Austrian prosecutors charged Aliyev in December with the murder of two bankers in 2007, prompting Kazakhstan to repeatedly request his extradition, Reuters reported.
Aliyev, a former son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev who has become his public critic, dismissed the accusations as politically motivated.
He has been in custody since June after surrendering to the Austrian authorities.
The Austrian news agency reported a statement from a prison official, who said that Aliyev's body was found early this morning in a solitary cell at the Jozefstadt prison in Vienna and that the prisoner committed suicide by hanging.
Kazakhstan requested his extradition from Austria, but the authorities in Vienna rejected the request twice due to the human rights situation in the former Soviet republic.
Instead, Austrian authorities launched their own investigation in 2011.
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