Kyrgyz Republic withdraws £20 million fraud claim against Maksim Bakiev
11 Oct 2016
Two Kyrgyz Republic agencies have withdrawn a High Court civil fraud action they commenced in April this year against Maksim Bakiev, the son of the former President of the Kyrgyz Republic.
“I came to the UK in 2010 after a military coup against my father’s government.” Mr Bakiev said. “Since then I have been the victim of a political vendetta by the new government in the Kyrgyz Republic.”
In the latest of a series of legal encounters, he faced a civil fraud claim in which Mr Bakiev was accused of defrauding two government funds of the Kyrgyz Republic of at least £20 million. However, this claim was withdrawn last week, in the face of Mr Bakiev’s readiness to seek summary judgment.
His success in fighting off this latest claim comes just two months after a judgment in favour of Mr Bakiev at the trial of a personal injury claim brought against him by British businessman Sean Daley over a shooting incident in the Kyrgyz Republic in 2006.
Mr Daley had sought to rely on a conviction in the Kyrgyz Republic in 2014, which took place without the prior knowledge of Mr Bakiev and in his absence. Mr Bakiev had responded that “the prosecution was cooked up by the Kyrgyz authorities as part of its unrelenting campaign to lay the blame for the country’s ills at the door of my family.”
Mr Justice Supperstone described the evidence adduced on behalf of Mr Daley as “wholly implausible” and raised concerns that “it was made in collaboration with Mr Ismailov [the Kyrgyz prosecutor] for the purpose of ensuring the conviction of [Mr Bakiyev]…”
Mr Bakiev said, “This sequence of events appears to suggest that the vendetta against me has found its way into the UK justice system.”
Mr Bakiev was represented in the civil fraud case by Partner Daniel Machover and Associate solicitor Helen Stone of Hickman and Rose solicitors, and he retained barristers Jonathan Crow QC of 4 Stone Buildings and David Davies of Essex Court Chambers.
