Case 1:10-cv-01618-TFH Document 35-1 Filed 01/21/11 Page 1 of 6

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

__________________________________________
)
DEVINCCI SALAH HOURANI, et al. )
)
)
Plaintiffs )
) Civil Action No. 10-1618 (TFH)
v. )
)
ALEXANDER V. MIRTCHEV, et al. )
)
)
Defendants )
__________________________________________)

Second Declaration of Rakhat Mukhtarovich Aliyev

I, Rakhat Mukhtarovich Aliyev, state as follows:

1. My full name is Rakhat Mukhtarovich Aliyev. I am a citizen of the Republic of

Kazakhstan and was born on December 10, 1962, in Almaty, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union

(now part of Kazakhstan). I am over 18 years of age and have personal knowledge and

information of the facts stated herein. I have read and understood this declaration prior to

signing it.

2. I can read and speak English fairly well. However, since English is not my native

language, I have been assisted in the preparation of this statement by Plaintiffs’ attorneys,

Crowell & Moring, LLP.

3. I previously submitted a Declaration to this Court on January 14, 2011, describing my

connections with President Nazarbayev, my former father-in-law, and the various high-

level political positions I held in the Kazakh Government. Additionally, I described my

falling-out with President Nazarbayev, and the subsequent campaign of intimidation and

1
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harassment of me, my family, and my friends.

4. By virtue of the high-level positions I previously held in the Kazakh Government, my

familial relationship with President Nazarbayev, and because I hold two doctoral

degrees – one in medical science and another in economics – I was a well-known

political figure and successful businessman in Kazakhstan. During the course of my

career, I made numerous friends in Kazakhstan who were also politically connected

and in, in many cases, served in the security services.

5. Although I have lived in exile since June 2007, I maintain relationships with many of

these people. Many of these loyal friends inside Kazakhstan remain politically

connected, and a number of them continue to work in the state security services and

other law enforcement agencies. From time to time, these friends are able to access

sensitive documents produced and kept by the Kazakh Government, and provide me

with copies of documents relevant to the President’s campaign against me and my

relatives and those connected to me.

6. Over the past year, I have received a number of documents from my sources inside

Kazakhstan. I understand that Defendants, through the Kazakh Ambassador to the

United States in Washington, D.C. and President Nazarbayev’s chief of staff, have

suggested to this Court that two documents submitted by Plaintiffs’ counsel as evidence

in this case are not authentic and somehow are “forgeries.” As explained below, this

assertion is false. These two documents are authentic and, to the best of my knowledge

and belief, copies of original documents of the Kazakh Government, given that they

were provided to me by my sources inside the Kazakh Government.

7. Specifically, I have been informed by Plaintiffs’ counsel that the two documents at issue

are: (1) a letter from Erlan Idrissov, Kazakhstan’s Ambassador to the U.S., dated
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November 26, 2010, detailing the efforts of the Embassy and Alexander Mirtchev to

discredit me, Devincci Hourani, and Issam Hourani, and to track our movements, lobby

against us, and to drain us financially through the pretext of criminal charges; and (2) a

Personal Order signed by President Nazarbayev, dated November 26, 2010, directing the

KNB security services and Kazakh Government officials in other agencies to increase their

efforts to subject me and Issam Hourani to prosecution, conviction, and sentencing in

absentia as quickly as possible so that Kazakhstan can request our arrest and extradition

through INTERPOL.

8. At this time, it is not feasible for me to identify the names of the individuals inside

Kazakhstan who provided me these materials because they would be subject to retaliation,

harassment, intimidation, and persecution. In my previous declaration, I informed this

Court about various retaliatory steps taken against associates of mine that remained in

Kazakhstan, and I will not repeat them here. But these steps demonstrate the lengths to

which the Kazakh Government is willing to go to in order to punish those that maintain

a relationship with me.

9. I take very seriously the assertion by Defendants that these two documents are not

authentic. If I were at liberty to disclose the identities of the persons who provided me

these documents without endangering these individuals, I would do so. I cannot. I can

attest, however, that the persons inside Kazakhstan who provided me these two

documents are individuals whom I trust. I know and am confident that because of their

positions, they would have access to the type of documents they have provided me,

including the two documents at issue. Stated another way, I have no doubt that the

documents I have been provided are genuine and not forgeries.

10. In particular, I recall that I received these two documents sometime in early December
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2010, and immediately provided them to Plaintiffs and their counsel on December 7,

2010. I provided these two documents to Plaintiffs and their counsel immediately because

I understood they are relevant to this court case.

11. If it becomes necessary, I am prepared to testify before this Court or in a deposition to

provide a detailed explanation of how these two documents came into my possession and

why I am confident that they are genuine copies of recent Kazakh governmental

communications relevant to this court case. However, I provide below a short summary

for this Court to appreciate why I believe they are authentic.

12. Sometime in 2000-2001, while I was serving as the First Deputy Chairman of the KNB

Security Services in Kazakhstan, I recommended to President Nazarbayev that the

government modernize its communications systems for sending, receiving, maintaining,

and otherwise managing the flow of important international information, sensitive

documents, and diplomatic cables to embassies and missions around the world. With his

approval, I oversaw the construction and implementation of an entirely new, state-of-the-

art facility, to be operated by the KNB security services. Up to that time, the government

had been employing an out-dated system used since the Soviet era. Attached as Exhibit 1

is an organizational chart which I helped to draft and implement which lays out the

organizational structure of this new office, which was called the KNB Special Information

Service (“SIS KNB”).

13. The SIS KNB has three departments that: (1) collect all information from cables, the

internet, satellites, and communication systems; (2) organize government and KNB cables

and communications, including those from overseas Kazakh embassies and intelligence

stations; and (3) analyze and review the information and related cable traffic inside the

Kazakh Government, including the secret encrypt cables inside the Foreign Minister’s
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office. It is staffed by a specially trained group of KNB officers who report directly to the

Chief of the KNB and President Nazarbayev. It is manned 24 hours per day, seven days

per week, and never closes its operations. This is critical because the President, Prime

Minister, Foreign Minister, and other security officials must be able to access and transmit

high-level communications at any hour.

14. The electronic equipment in the SIS offices includes very sophisticated encryption coding

systems to ensure that such communications remain classified and confidential. The

rooms themselves are heavily secured, and are encased in special blocking devices and

structures to prevent electronic surveillance. Once KNB staff officers determine that a

particular document or message is important enough to bring to the attention of a high-

ranking minister, or even the President, it is printed out in hard-copy format and taken by

special SIS KNB officer courier directly to the official for his review.

15. I personally established this system during my tenure as First Deputy Chairman of the

KNB security services, and observed, in person, on many occasions how this system

operated. In addition, from July 6, 2005, until February 2007, I served as First Deputy

Foreign Minister, and personally received copies of documents, cables and

communications from the SIS KNB courier and direct communication cables to the

President of Kazakhstan.

16. From my own official experience, I know for a fact that the practices I described above

have been followed by the KNB security services since 2001 and continue to this day. On

that basis, I am confident that the two contested documents cited above were part of the

system I established and were printed in hard copy for hand delivery to the President and

other officials. To my knowledge, they were printed in hard copy exactly as they

appeared electronically, and not altered in any way from their original communications,
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since that has been the practice for many years.

17. When I received copies of these two documents in early December 2010 from confidential

sources inside Kazakhstan, I immediately sent them to Plaintiffs' counsel in Washington,

D.C. for use as evidence in this case. I have no reason to doubt the integrity or reliability

of these sources, since they have sent me large numbers of other sensitive documents over

the past 3 years since my exile from Kazakhstan. While many of those documents were

unrelated to the Houranis' situation at issue in this case and other venues, they regularly

were obtained through the same process - and have been authentic and reliable in every

other instance. I attach hereto several examples of such documents received ortaken from

the same sources in 2005, 2006, and 2007 , by way of example. See Exhibits 2-4.

I, Rakhat Mukhtarovich Aliyev, declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the

United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct.

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Rakhat Mukhtarovich Alivev. Former Ambassador of Kazakhstan

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