Top cop probed for Shalabayeva

(ANSA) - Rome, November 26 - Top cop Renato Cortese, Rimini police chief Maurizio Improta, another five police and justice of the peace Stefania Lavore are being probed for suspected kidnapping in the 2013 expulsion from Italy of Alma Shalabayeva, wife of Kazakh dissident Mukhtar Ablyazov, and their six-year-old daughter, judicial sources said Thursday.
    In July 2014 Italy's supreme Cassation Court ruled that the deportation of the wife and daughter of the Kazakh dissident was "manifestly illegitimate".
    Italy rescinded the deportation order after the May 31, 2013, expulsion of Shalabayeva and daughter Alua, who were seized in a nighttime raid and put on a private jet with Kazakh diplomats, was brought to light.
    According to Shalabayeva, some 50 plain-clothes officers mistreated and verbally abused her and her daughter during the operation before turning the two over to the government of Kazakhstan, which has been criticized for human rights abuses.
    Ablyazov, who is wanted in Kazakhstan and Russia, is an outspoken critic of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev.
    Kazakhstan claims Ablyazov, a banker, is not a dissident but an outlaw wanted for a multi-billion-euro embezzlement case at his BTA Bank.
    Shalabayeva and her daughter returned to Italy six months after their controversial deportation, which caused an international scandal.
    They were able to leave Kazakhstan after the authorities in Astana lifted restrictions on their movements, following strenuous lobbying from former foreign minister Emma Bonino.