Kazakh opposition leader on trial for attempting to overthrow government

Britain granted political asylum to Ablyazov last year as he awaited embezzlement charges brought by his former bank, which he has said are politically motivated. But his whereabouts are unknown since he fled after being convicted in February of contempt of court.

Little popular support

Back home, Kazakhstan's marginalized and fragmented opposition enjoys relatively little popular support. Several hundred people attended rallies held monthly in Almaty, the country's largest city, after a Jan. 15 parliamentary election.

Nazarbayev, a former steel worker who rose through the ranks of the Soviet Communist party, remains popular across the mainly Muslim country of 16.7 million people and is credited for sustained economic growth in an otherwise volatile region.

Robert Blake, U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, said Kazakhstan had a "particular responsibility" to demonstrate reforms it pledged as chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2010.

"We hope that (the trial) is going to be conducted in a fair, impartial and open way," Blake told reporters in Almaty.

"We also hope that the trial itself will not undermine some of the progress that Kazakhstan is making to develop a multiparty democracy," he said on the eve of the trial.

January's election allowed three parties into Kazakhstan's parliament for the first time in 20 years of independence, a small concession to democracy in the face of growing frustration over the unequal distribution of the country's mineral wealth.

Not eligible to run

But the second- and third-placed parties are broadly sympathetic to Nazarbayev's ruling Nur Otan party, which itself won 81 percent of the vote. The OSCE's observer mission said genuine opposition parties had been barred and media shackled.

Kozlov's Alga! party, long denied official registration, was not eligible to run. He was arrested a week after the election in an apparent crackdown on vocal critics of the government.

"Anything short of a scrupulously fair trial will only serve to cast further doubt that the case against these men is arbitrary and politically motivated," Mihra Rittmann, Central Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Prominent rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis, observing the trial, said he expected a verdict by the end of August. Earlier trials of those accused of participating in the violence saw 23 people jailed, including six policemen.

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