Azerbaijan: Spy Scandal Continues To Raise More Questions Than Answers

Wednesday, 10 August 2005
(RFE/RL)

The Azerbaijani authorities and supporters and associates of Ruslan
Bashirli, leader of the opposition youth movement Yeni Fikir, have
offered widely diverging accounts of, and explanations for, the events
that culminated in Bashirli’s arrest last week on charges of plotting
to overthrow the Azerbaijani leadership.

According to a statement released on 4 August by the Azerbaijani
Prosecutor-General’s Office, Bashirli traveled in late July to Tbilisi
at the behest of his mentor, Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (AHCP)
Chairman Ali Kerimli. On the sidelines of a conference, Bashirli is
said to have met with three men, one ethnic Georgian and two
Armenians, all of them Armenian intelligence agents, and told them he
was working on instructions from the U.S. National Democratic
Institute to prepare for a revolution in Azerbaijan. His interlocutors
reportedly expressed approval, promised help, and presented him with
an initial payment of $2,000 to help fund the revolution, promising to
provide a further $20,000 within days.

One of the Armenians then informed Bashirli that the encounter had
been filmed, including his acceptance of and signing a receipt for the
$2,000. The Armenian reportedly told Bashirli that if he reneged on
his promise to cooperate, the incriminating film footage would be
handed over to the Azerbaijani authorities.

Bashirli was accompanied to Tbilisi by his deputy, Osman Alimuradov,
who, according to day.az on 4 August, was reluctant to collaborate
with the Armenians and who denounced Bashirli to the authorities on
his return to Baku. Bashirli was duly apprehended on 3 August.

In an interview with Azerbaijan’s Lider TV on 6 August, a transcript
of which was posted on day.az on 8 August, Azerbaijani
Prosecutor-General Zakir Garalov quoted from what he said was a
written statement by Alimuradov. Alimuradov said he spent the night
after the meeting with the three Armenian agents brooding over the
implications of the course of action Bashirli had agreed to, and came
to the conclusion that it was morally wrong. He said he tried to
persuade Bashirli after their return to Baku to abandon the entire
undertaking, but Bashirli said they should wait to do so until he
received the additional $20,000. Therefore, according to Alimuradov,
he decided to hand over to the Azerbaijani authorities the video
footage of the meeting he was given by the Armenian.

A Crude Fabrication?

Bashirli’s fellow oppositionists, however, have dismissed the
prosecutor-general’s account as a crude and clumsy fabrication
intended to discredit the AHCP in the run-up to the 6 November
parliamentary election, and Kerimli personally. Bashirli himself
reportedly told his attorney, Elchin Garalov, on 8 August that he was
being pressured to incriminate Kerimli, whom the website day.az on 6
August identified as one of Azerbaijan’s most popular and respected
opposition politicians. The online daily echo-az.com on 6 August
quoted pro-government political scientist Mubariz Akhmedoglu as saying
Bashirli is clearly guilty of treason, and the links between him and
the AHCP are adequate grounds for revoking that party’s official
registration.

Speaking at a press conference in Baku on 5 August, two deputy
chairmen of Yeni Fikir, Said Nuriev and Fikret Faramazoglu, said that
Bashirli was offered the $2,000 by representatives of Georgian and
Armenian “democratic forces.” They said he was drunk at the time, and
hypothesized that his drink may have been spiked. They said that the
following day, Bashirli returned the money.

Both the official charges against Bashirli and the opposition
objections to those charges are based on the incriminating video
materials, which show Bashirli sipping cognac in the company of three
men and uttering incriminating statements. Specifically, he is said to
have agreed to the proposal made by one of the Armenian agents to take
advantage of the tense domestic political situation in Azerbaijan, and
even open fire at an opposition demonstration.

Questions About Video

But Bashirli’s lawyer Gambarov told journalists in Baku on 8 August
that the video footage was edited, and that Bashirli’s words were
“taken out of context,” zerkalo.az reported on 9 August. Moreover, as
several Azerbaijani commentaries have pointed out, Bashirli’s drunken
pronouncements cannot be conflated with a statement of intent to
overthrow the present leadership.

Even more problematic than the content of the videocassette is the way
the Azerbaijani authorities allegedly acquired it. As Bashirli’s
lawyer Gambarov observed on 8 August, “No intelligence service in the
world would hand over a videocassette with compromising footage to
someone whom it was seeking to co-opt. ”

In an article entitled “Armenian recruitment or planned operation?”
the independent online daily zerkalo.az on 6 August similarly asked
why the Armenians should have given the cassette to Alimuradov. Are
the Armenian special services really so stupid, the daily asked, that
they would play into the hands of their Azerbaijani counterparts?

The daily further noted that the Azerbaijani Prosecutor-General’s
Office acted unprofessionally in immediately making public the
contents of the cassette, rather than handing it to the National
Security Ministry to permit it to try to identify, and obtain more
watertight evidence against, the purported Armenian agents. Zerkalo.az
went to far as to suggest that the case against Bashirli was
fabricated by the Azerbaijani authorities. But Akhmedoglu dismissed
that possibility, telling day.az on 6 August that “I do not think that
the Azerbaijani authorities are powerful enough to try to manipulate
the Armenian special services or certain Georgian circles.”

What Lies Beneath

Pending the emergence of new evidence, it is impossible at this
juncture to determine with any certainty which of the above hypotheses
is correct. But if, as Bashirli’s supporters claim, the case against
him was fabricated in Baku, then the question arises: by whom, and to
what end? Was it simply a bid to discredit Kerimli and his party in
the run-up to the 6 November ballot, or even to trigger widespread
unrest that could be adduced for postponing that ballot?

Or could the real object of the exercise be totally different? Given
the rumored existence of rival factions within the upper echelons of
the Azerbaijani leadership, was the hapless Bashirli simply a pawn in
a larger scheme either to embarrass President Ilham Aliyev and call
into question his professed commitment to building a democratic
society, or to reignite popular hostility towards Armenia at a point
when Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe mediators
have expressed cautious optimism that a negotiated settlement to the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict may be closer than ever before?