Translated material
Coup d'etat without evidence
The investigation into the conspiracy is being delayed in Baku
Exactly a year ago in Azerbaijan, according to the authorities of this country, an attempted coup was prevented. His goal was to bring to power the leader of the opposition, ex-speaker of parliament Rasul Guliyev, who has lived in the United States for many years. The regime change was supposed to occur as a result of anti-government unrest timed to coincide with Guliyev’s return to the country to participate in parliamentary elections.One of the main “conspirators” turned out to be the Minister of Economic Development of Azerbaijan, 43-year-old Farhad Aliyev. He was arrested in his office on October 19, 2005 and accused of transferring $100,000 to former Finance Minister Fikret Yusifov to organize mass unrest in Baku on October 17, when the opposition leader was scheduled to arrive there. Farhad Aliyev denied the accusations, saying that he lent money to Yusifov for personal needs.
On the same day, Farhad Aliyev’s brother, Rafik, was arrested at the Baku airport while boarding a plane flying to Turkey. The head of Azerbaijan's largest private oil company Azpetrol, 39-year-old Rafik Aliyev, was accused of a very strange offense for a businessman of his level - foreign currency smuggling. After additional inspection, after going through customs and border control, they found undeclared $30,000 in his hand luggage. Rafik Aliyev claims that the money was planted on him. Typically, such offenses are punishable by a fine, or in the worst case, by confiscation of the amount.
However, Rafik Aliyev was placed alone in the pre-trial detention center of the Ministry of National Security. Nine months later, he was charged with oil smuggling, organizing a criminal gang and forging documents. And finally, at the end of September, 11 months after the arrest, the ex-head of Azpetrol, like his brother, was among those accused of preparing a coup. According to the prosecution, on October 15, 2005, Rafik Aliyev transferred 100 thousand euros to the same Fikret Yusifov for organizing the putsch.
It is already the second year that the Aliyev brothers have been in custody, but neither the trial date nor the completion date of the investigation have been established. There were no public hearings on their cases. Human rights activists and representatives of the Azerbaijani opposition explain this by the stalemate in which the authorities find themselves. The delay in the investigation indicates a lack of evidence, but no one dares to close the case - influential people in the leadership are not interested in this. The case cannot go to court where it will fall apart. In addition, during the judicial investigation, the names of members of senior management and persons close to the ruling family of President Ilham Aliyev and involved in corruption may be revealed.
The fact is that Farhad Aliyev, invited to the government of the country back in 1997 by the late President Heydar Aliyev and enjoying his absolute trust, dealt with the problem of corruption. Farhad Aliyev continued to do the same, as well as leading antimonopoly measures, under Aliyev Jr. It was then, according to members of his family, that he made influential enemies in the persons of the Ministers of National Security and Emergency Situations, Eldar Makhmudov and Kemaleddin Heydarov.
A scandalous turn in the case of Farhad Aliyev occurred in July of this year, when the ex-minister was named as the mastermind behind the murder in March 2005 of the famous Azerbaijani journalist, editor-in-chief of the opposition weekly Monitor, Elmar Huseynov. This accusation was made by the former head of the criminal investigation department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan, Gadzhi Mamedov, who actually led a gang that kidnapped and killed about 50 people over ten years. Under investigation for more than a year, Gadzhi Mamedov, who faces life imprisonment, said that he organized the murder of the journalist at the personal request of the minister. The perpetrators were named as two members of Mamedov's gang, who are already dead. No evidence of Farhad Aliyev’s guilt was provided.
The Azerbaijani lawyer of the ex-minister, Elton Guliyev, in an interview with Eurasianet, called these accusations “ridiculous.” The day after they were made, the lawyer held a press conference and read out a statement from his client, in which Farhad Aliyev said that investigators had warned him: if he does not plead guilty to preparing a coup, he will be accused of killing Huseynov. “It was so absurd that I did not take this threat seriously,” the former minister said in a statement. Representative of the Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan Vugar Aliyev also called the criminal's testimony "unfounded." Relatives of the murdered journalist also express serious doubts about the “confessions” of Gadzhi Mamedov. “This statement is part of a certain game by the authorities,” said his father Sabir Huseynov.
Farhad Aliyev suffers from a severe form of hypertension. On December 22, 2005, after a hypertensive crisis, he was transferred to intensive care for a day. But the authorities refuse to recognize him as sick and deprive him of necessary medical care. The American lawyer of Farhad and Rafik Aliyev, Charles Bot, reported this in his report on the results of his trip to Baku in September. “It is simply disgraceful that for a year, while the Aliyev brothers are in pre-trial detention, the Azerbaijani authorities have been unable to justify their illegal imprisonment and have denied Farhad Aliyev the right to medical treatment,” Mr. Bot said in an interview with “ News time."