DUBAI // A former Kazakh official charged with embezzling Dh19 million may soon face extradition from the UAE, reports say.
Anar Meshimbaeva, until 2009 the head of her country's statistics agency overseeing the national census, was found in the UAE last week, the Kazakh news agency Interfax said.
By Thursday the parliament had approved an extradition treaty with the UAE, which the president Nursultan Nazarbayev is expected to sign.
"We have already sent the necessary documents to the United Arab Emirates," Iogan Merkel, the first deputy prosecutor general of Kazakhstan, told the news website Gazeta.
"They are waiting for when we ratify the agreement."
Ms Meshimbaeva resigned in October 2009 after being accused, along with two deputies, of stealing 764.8 million tenge (Dh19m) set aside for the census held that year, Russia's Vremya newspaper reported. She was charged in absentia.
Six other Kazakh fugitives are in the UAE, Mr Merkel said last week. It was unclear if they also faced extradition.
Only 176 of 1,618 Kazakh citizens listed as wanted by Interpol have been found, Ural Mukhamedzhanov, deputy of the lower chamber in Kazakhstan, told the news portal Tengrinews.kz.
Kazakhstan needs more extradition treaties to pursue those fugitives, Mr Mukhamedzhanov said.
Kazakhstan has treaties with China, South Korea, Lithuania, Mongolia and Turkey, and is negotiating with European Union states, Mr Merkel said.
chuang@thenational.ae
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
'Cheb%20Khaled'
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The Bio
Name: Lynn Davison
Profession: History teacher at Al Yasmina Academy, Abu Dhabi
Children: She has one son, Casey, 28
Hometown: Pontefract, West Yorkshire in the UK
Favourite book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Favourite Author: CJ Sansom
Favourite holiday destination: Bali
Favourite food: A Sunday roast