In charge of the much-coveted Energy Ministry in 1998, he was imprisoned for "political opposition". Here is the tale of the controversial dissident who once belonged to Kazakh President Nazarbayev's elite.

Astana (AsiaNews) - Mukhtar Ablyazov, the Kazakh dissident at the centre of an international controversy after Italy extradited his wife and daughter to Kazakhstan at the end of May, began his political career in 1998 as Energy minister. The Kazakh president thought he had found in him a member of the country's future political elite. However, Ablyazov eventually broke ranks with the government, complaining about corruption, and set up the country's first opposition party. His falling out, which some describe as "self-serving", ended in his arrest.

During his stay in Kazakhstan's notorious Derzhavinsk, Mukhtar Ablayazov was kept in isolation, beaten and denied access to his lawyers.

In May 2004, after serving 10 months of a six-year sentence, President Nursultan Nazarbayev pardoned him following demands from his family and the international community.

Ablyazov also agreed to give up his political ambitions in exchange for his release. Once free, he got back in business, climbed to the top of the BTA, Kazakhstan's largest bank, but also spent millions of dollars in the past decade funding opposition groups and independent media, rekindling President Nazarbayev's enmity.

In 2009, BTA Bank found itself in a serious crisis and the Kazakh president, in order to nationalise the bank, accused Ablyazov and his officials of embezzling US$ 6 billion.

On 2 February of the same year, the state bought a 78 per cent stake in the bank, but Ablyazov had already fled to London, where he was granted political asylum in 2011.

In London, Ablyazov and his family lived sumptuously but eventually he fled England too, ostensibly to avoid a jail sentence for failing to provide information about his financial assets. Lawyers for Ablyazov insisted though that he left the UK after receiving a death threat.

Radio Free Europe has described Mukhtar Ablyazov as a 'wild '90s" oligarch, who took advantage of the break-up of the former Soviet Union through his connections with Nazarbayev.

Now he is the president's number one political enemy.

• kazakhstan
• italy
• mukhtar
• ablyazov
• nazarbayev
• dissident
• wife
• daughter
• extradition