Azerbaijan opens torture and murder case after deaths of two citizens in Russian police custody

Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s Office has launched a criminal investigation into the alleged torture and murder of two Azerbaijani citizens who died after being detained by Russian law enforcement in the city of Yekaterinburg on June 27.

According to a statement cited by the pro-government Azerbaijani media outlet Report, Russian security forces “restricted the freedom of Azerbaijani nationals and others of Azerbaijani origin and inflicted multiple blows with blunt objects to various parts of their bodies during detention, transportation, and confinement.” The detainees were reportedly tortured, and they sustained severe injuries.

The Azerbaijani authorities say 60-year-old Huseyn Safarov died at a Russian Interior Ministry facility from “post-traumatic and hemorrhagic shock resulting from numerous injuries, including multiple rib fractures,” while his brother, 55-year-old Ziyaddin, was “deliberately murdered with particular cruelty in a police vehicle earlier the same day.” The cause of death for the younger Safarov was identified as “traumatic shock due to multiple injuries.”

The brothers’ bodies were transported to Azerbaijan and buried on July 1 in their home village in the Agjabadi District. Also on July 1, Adalat Hasanov, head of Azerbaijan’s Association of Forensic Medical Examination and Pathological Anatomy, said autopsies conducted in Baku confirmed that the men died from violent injuries — not heart conditions, as Russian coroners had previously claimed. On June 30, Russia’s Investigative Committee reported that one of the men had died of “heart failure,” while the death of the second was “still being determined.”

Hasanov said that the body of Ziyaddin Safarov showed signs of hemorrhaging, blunt chest trauma, and bruises to the kidney and groin. “All his ribs were broken… We couldn’t even find one rib, it was removed,” Hasanov said. Local outlet Minval reported that Huseyn Safarov was confirmed to have suffered a broken nose, a deformed rib cage, large bruises around his eyes, and contusions in the genital area, among other injuries.

Aside from the deceased, eight other Azerbaijani nationals were detained on June 27: Mazahir Safarov, Akif Safarov, Ayaz Safarov, Bakir Safarov, Kamal Safarov, Akhliman Ganjiev, Shakhin Lalayev, and Aziz Abasov.

Russia’s Investigative Committee alleges the men were part of a criminal gang responsible for at least three contract killings between 2001 and 2011, reportedly over business disputes. However, the Azerbaijani authorities claim Huseyn was a small-scale businessman, while Ziyaddin worked as a taxi driver.

Local Yekaterinburg outlet E1.RU reported that Aziz Abasov and Kamal Safarov remain hospitalized in serious condition. The rest are either under arrest or awaiting pretrial hearings.

The deaths have triggered a diplomatic crisis between Moscow and Baku. Azerbaijani officials have accused Russian authorities of targeting the brothers based on their ethnicity. On June 30, Azerbaijani law enforcement raided the Baku office of Russian state media outlet Sputnik, detaining its executive director Igor Kartavykh and editor-in-chief Yevgeny Belousov, both of whom were accused of working for the FSB, Russia’s Federal Security Service.

On July 1, the Azerbaijani ambassador to Moscow was summoned by Russia’s Foreign Ministry.