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Ryanair ad mocks Italian MP over Kazakh case

Angela Giuffrida/The Local/AFP
Angela Giuffrida/The Local/AFP - [email protected]
Ryanair ad mocks Italian MP over Kazakh case
The Ryanair ad mocks Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano. Photo: Ryanair screenshot.

In an ad on its website, the low-cost airline pokes fun at Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, who is at the centre of a row over the illegal deportation of the wife and daughter of a Kazakh dissident in May.

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The ad shows Alfano looking quizzical, alongside the slogan: “One thing I know! Soon I’ll go home with Ryanair!”

The ad promotes a €29 flight from Rome to Comiso in Sicily, where Alfano is from.

Alfano has come under fire for the illegal deportation of the wife and six-year-old daughter of Mukhtar Ablyazov, a banker and political opponent of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Police busted into Alma Shalabayeva's home near Rome on May 29th in search of Ablyazov, who was granted political asylum in Britain in 2011 but who fled after police warned him his life was in danger.

When they did not find the former Kazakh political prisoner, they picked up his wife and daughter, accusing the former of holding a fake passport, and put them on a plane to Kazakhstan two days later.

The expulsion and media reports that it set in motion following diplomatic pressure from Kazakhstan has caused uproar in Italy.

Alfano's Cabinet Chief, Giuseppe Procaccini, quit following allegations that he met with Kazakhstan’s ambassador in Rome ahead of the deportation.

A no-confidence vote over Alfano's handling of the affair will be held in the Italian Senate on Friday.

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