[{"sender": "Jeffrey Epstein <jeevacation@gmail.com>", "recipients": ["Weingarten, Reid"], "timestamp": "Tuesday, November 08, 2011 04:51 PM", "subject": null, "body": "In taking his case to Washington, Mr. Aliyev has variously sought safe passage to the United States, help in recovering $2 billion that relatives claimed they lost from seized businesses, or at least the satisfaction of embarrassing Mr. Nazarbayev. For his part, the Kazakh leader wants to make sure that the Americans stay out of the dispute, and not allow it to affect their alliance with his government.\n\nThe Obama administration has done just that. Through comments in secret diplomatic cables, the former ambassador to Kazakhstan made clear his wariness of being drawn in.\n\n“Both sides — the government and Aliyev — seek to manipulate us to their own advantage,” Richard E. Hoagland, who ended his term as United States ambassador early this year, wrote in February 2009 in one of more than a dozen State Department cables obtained by the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks that mentioned the dispute. [*]\n\nMr. Nazarbayev, 70, [*]a former steel worker and Soviet-era Communist Party leader, has been in power for two decades, presiding over Central Asia’s most vibrant economy. Human rights activists, however, have long accused him of persecuting dissidents and political opponents.\n\nMr. Aliyev, 48, [*]has served as chief of the tax police, deputy foreign affairs minister and head of the Kazakh equivalent of the K.G.B. But critics say he used his clout to secretly take over private companies for financial gain, often by threatening violence.\n\nNow hiding somewhere in Europe, he has been convicted back home on what he claims are trumped-up criminal charges, including a coup attempt. His wife divorced him in June 2007, and the Kazakh government has taken businesses owned by him and members of his extended family. [*]\n\nNo longer powerful at home, Mr. Aliyev turned to Washington, knowing that his former father-in-law cared greatly about his reputation there. Early in 2008 he hired RJI Government Stra 5, a sroup whose consultants included Tanya Rahall, sister of Representative Nick J. ul m4 a : West reemve Democrat; and a friend of Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California. Both congressmen were booked on a trip to Kazakhstan\n\nto discuss energy policy with Mr. Nazarbayev. Before their departure, members 0 A urge him to express strong concerns about the\n\nharm done to a relative of Mr. Aliyev named Devincci Hourani, whose oil-company assets in Kazakhstan were seized, according to a letter to Mr. Issa from RJI.\n\nMr. Issa, who had developed a rapport with the Kazakh president on an earlier visit, nonetheless agreed to take up the plight of Mr. Hourani. Though he stepped into the fight, he still maintained a close connection to the president, nominating him that summer for the Nobel Prize, a move that drew ridicule from human rights activists. aces right, of Vista, CA] [*]\n\nNY vorked ¢ of sv and later for Mr. Hourani through 2010, contacting the offices of at least +0 dozen members af Congress. They included Representative Howard L. Berman, Democrat of California, then chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, whose office said he discussed the dispute with the State Department.\n\nMs. Rahall also pursued a second strategy. “The alternative is to embarrass the existing regime,” she wrote in a July 2008 e-mail to her boss.\n\nShe pressed House members to criticize the Kazakh government’s human rights record. At her request, at least five statements were published in the Congressional Record, one citing Mr. Aliyev as a victim of his government. Separately, Mr. Aliyev offered to provide the Justice Department with documents that he claimed could prove that his former father-in-law accepted bribes from a businessman representing American oil companies that were seeking drilling rights in Kazakhstan"}]