Brother of Kazakh president sues St. Regis over luxury condo’s balcony

A Miami condo deal gone sour could cause further embarrassment for Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Miami New Times reported. In 2007, Nursultan’s brother Bolat Nazarbayev purchased a luxury condominium in the St. Regis Bal Harbour for $1.2 million with money earned from his appointment to the head of the state copper mining industry. Now he has filed a lawsuit five years later, claiming that the St. Regis lied to him about certain aspects of the condo. One point of contention is the balcony, which Bolat argues is “not private at all.” These events are  “very embarrassing to the president,” according to Scott Horton, a law lecturer at Columbia University who has studied Kazakhstan. “It’s another case showing how people close to the president have become billionaires through state industry.” [Miami New Times]