Kazakh tycoons back president in son-in-law spat

ALMATY, May 30 (Reuters) Kazakhstan's most powerful businessmen threw their weight behind President Nursultan Nazarbayev today in his dispute with his son-in-law.

Rakhat Aliyev used illegal means to conduct business and damaged ''moral values'' in the former Soviet nation, the tycoons said in a statement.

Aliyev, a powerful businessman and long-time confidant of Nazarbayev, is wanted at home on criminal charges after falling out with the veteran leader.

Aliyev has berated Nazarbayev from Vienna where he went into self-imposed exile after being sacked last week as ambassador to Austria.

In today's statement, a group of Kazakhstan's business leaders, including the head of the oil-rich nation's top bank, expressed their loyalty to Nazarbayev.

''We would like to announce we firmly support the position of our country's president, Nursultan Abishevich Nazarbayev,'' they wrote in a statement published in the Vremya newspaper.

Aliyev, 44, says his troubles started after he shared his presidential ambitions with Nazarbayev. He has accused the Kazakh leader - in power since 1989 - of usurping power.

The dispute has opened a deep rift in the ruling elite, a potential worry to foreign investors in the Central Asian state, a major regional oil producer.

Aliyev has been accused of kidnapping two bankers and running a mafia network.

''Any one of us could find ourselves in the shoes of those abducted bankers. We are worried that Aliyev and his allies might use provocative acts against people and stability in society,'' the tycoons said in their statement.

They included Grigory Marchenko, the influential head of Halyk Bank, Kazakhstan's third-largest bank, and the chairman of Kazakhstan's top bank Kazkommertsbank, Nurzhan Subkhanberdin, who is ranked by Forbes magazine as one of Kazakhstan's richest businessmen.

Kazakh police have issued an international arrest warrant for Aliyev. Austria's Foreign Ministry said today that Aliyev, owner of a banking-to-media business empire at home, had officially lost his diplomatic immunity.

Aliyev's wife Dariga - Nazarbayev's eldest daughter - has not commented on the matter.

Reuters GL VV1645