Aliyev’s 12-Year-Old Son Owns Property in Dubai Worth $44 Million? How?

18:11 – 05.03.10

In just two weeks early last year, an 11-year-old boy from Azerbaijan
became the owner of nine waterfront mansions, reports The Washington
Post.

The total price tag: about $44 million USD – or roughly 10,000 years’
worth of salary for the average citizen of Azerbaijan. But the preteen
who owns a big chunk of some of Dubai’s priciest real estate seems to
be anything but average.

His name, according to Dubai Land Department records, is Heydar
Aliyev, which just happens to be the same name as that of the son of
Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev. The owner’s date of birth,
listed in property records, is also the same as that of the
president’s son.

Officials in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, declined to comment on
how the president’s son – or at least an Azerbaijani schoolboy with
the same birth date and the same name as the son’s – came to own
mansions on Palm Jumeirah, a luxury real estate development popular
with multimillionaire British soccer stars and others with cash to
burn.

Ilham Aliyev’s annual salary as president is the equivalent of
$228,000 USD, far short of what is needed to buy even the smallest
Palm property.

Azer Gasimov, the president’s spokesperson, declined to discuss the
Dubai real estate purchases. "I have no comment on anything. I am
stopping this talk. Goodbye," he said when contacted by telephone and
told about the names on the property records. Gasimov did not respond
to requests for further comment sent by fax, e-mail and cellphone text
message.

Azerbaijan has sent troops to support U.S. democracy-building efforts
in Afghanistan and Iraq but at home has retreated steadily from
democratic practices, according to diplomats and experts on the
region. Transparency International, in a 2009 survey of global
corruption, ranked Azerbaijan among the worst at 143 out of 180
nations.

In addition to recording nine properties owned by Heydar Aliyev, the
now-12-year-old schoolboy, Dubai’s Land Department also has files in
the names of Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva. President Aliyev has two
daughters with the same names and roughly the same ages. Their exact
dates of birth could not be established, but various reports indicate
Leyla’s birthday is the same as that of the Azerbaijani woman who
figures in the Land Department records.

In all, Azerbaijanis with the same names as the president’s three
children own real estate in Dubai worth about $75 million, property
data indicate. Dubai real estate dealers with knowledge of some of the
transactions said the purchases were made by a buyer representing
Azerbaijan’s ruling family. The dealers said the properties were paid
for upfront.

Tert.am