1\\

Rinat Akhmetshin

House Intelligence Committee

November 13, 2017

2\\

AKHMETSHIN:

Good morning, Members and staff. My name is Rinat Akhmetshin. I was born January 22nd, 1968 in Kazan, Russia, which is a predominantly Muslim region of at that time Soviet Union and I was raised there. My father was in the military so we traveled a little bit.

3\\

AKHMETSHIN:

So we did some work with that chemistry, but the majority of my Ph.D. thesis was on blood enzymes. So just finding these compounds which could -- there are a lot of people who have blood enzyme deficiencies hemophilia one of them, many other disease are genetic.

4\\

AKHMETSHIN:

It was -- at that time the foundation is called, in English it's Kazakhstan 21st Century Foundation. It was based in Zurich, Switzerland, and we opened an office here in Washington, D.C.

5\\

AKHMETSHIN:

I would say for maybe about 10
years. The foundation later merged into this International Eurasian Institute. So foundation was - you know, after my - just one of the founders, my colleagues, former prime minister, wasn't able to - was not allowed on the ballot

6\\

AKHMETSHIN:

I was involved in this probably to this day largest Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act case in the history of United States where the President of Kazakhstan accepted bribe from -- through American citizen from the Mobil, Exxon Mobil Corporation.

7\\

AKHMETSHIN:

It's unfortunate, he did this for Putin. And this is really simply factually
not true. I mean a lot of work I've done, the vast majority I would say, like 80 to 90 percent of my work was done to advance these issues of Central Asia. Thousands to testify to that

8\\

AKHMETSHIN:

One of the major, major fundraisers
for that foundation was a former prime minister. His name is Akazhan, A-k-a-z-h-a-n, Kachegeldin, K-a-c-h-e-g-e-l-d-i-n, like Nancy, Kachegeldin. So he was -- he still to this day -- Kazakhstan is a very complex country.

9\\

QUIGLEY: Did you ever work with any Russian intelligence service?

AKHMETSHIN: As a part of my service, our unit for some time was
providing support for entity called Osobyi Otdel special department a counterintelligence unit of the
Soviet Army.

10\\

AKHMETSHIN:

I have done one -- which was reported to the media -- I have done one pro bono project for Russian drug enforcement agency, not even for drug enforcement agency. It is something to do with this U.S.-Russia cooperation in fighting drugs in Afghanistan.

11\\

AKHMETSHIN:

Russian businessmen are very litigious and they like to settle their disputes, business disputes in the courts throughout the world, in the United States but also a lot of cases are tried in London and Netherlands because of where those firm's
are incorporated

12\\

AKHMETSHIN:

So I have a client, very old client Andrey Vavilov who used to be a banker and then he had an oil company. He also now has a hedge fund. So he has been one of my kind of steady clients and I would say personal friends now for a number of years, 15 years at least

13\\

AKHMETSHIN:

Amdrey Vavilov- Servernay Neft S-e-v-e-r-n-a-y, second word Neft, N-e-f-t, Neft. So that was this, in that capacity.

14\\

AKHMETSHIN: It's a chemical company. Another more recent client was the chemical company from Moscow. It's called Eurochem,

QUIGLEY: Any others?

AKHMETSHIN: There's a newspaper called Novay Gazeta. It's actually an opposition newspapers, it is still very prominent.