AKIPRESS.COM - Former Kazakh intelligence chief Alnur Musaev on April 15 pleaded not guilty at a trial in Austria over his alleged involvement in the killing of two Kazakh bankers, reports RFE/RL.

Musaev and Vadim Koshlyak, two former associates of Rakhat Aliev, the deceased ex-son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev, went on trial in Austria on April 14.

They are accused of aiding in the abduction and murder of two managers of Kazakhstan’s Nurbank in 2007.

At the hearing on April 15, Musaev said accusations against him were groundless as he was not at the site where the two bankers were allegedly tortured and killed in 2007.

The main suspect, Rakhat Aliev, was found hanged in a Vienna prison in February.

Aliev was sacked from his post as Kazakhstan's ambassador to Austria and sentenced in absentia to 40 years in prison for organized crime activities and an attempted coup.

He denounced the case against him as politically motivated.

Austria refused extradition requests by Astana and launched its own investigations.