Agence France Presse
July 16 2004

Azerbaijan Investigates Officer’s Disappearance
AFP: 7/16/2004

BAKU, July 9 (AFP) – Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said on Friday it
was looking into the whereabouts of one of its senior officers, who
was reported to have applied for political asylum while studying on a
NATO course in Belgium.

Unconfirmed reports in the local media say that Lieutenant Colonel
Firuz Gassymov went absent without leave from his course in Brussels
and approached an unnamed foreign embassy to ask for asylum.

Defence ministry spokesman Ramiz Melikov declined to confirm the
reports but said: “Things are unclear at the moment. We are
conducting an investigation.”

If the reports are confirmed, it will be a serious embarassment for
Azerbaijan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic which prides itself on
the strength of its armed forces.

But it is not the first time that the military has created awkward
moments for the country’s leaders.

Last year, almost the entire student faculty at Azerbaijan’s most
prestigious military academy went absent without leave in protest at
their living conditions.

And earlier this year, an Azeri officer on a NATO course in Hungary
was charged with murder after an Armenian officer studying alongside
him was hacked to death with an axe as he slept.

The Azeri officer is now in jail in Budapest awaiting trial.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war in the early 1990s over the
territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, a dispute which is still unresolved.