AZERBAIJAN: STILL NO PUBLIC RESULTS FROM COUP INVESTIGATION
Rovshan Ismayilov
EurasiaNet, NY
Jan 8 2007
As the deadline draws closer for putting on trial two former ministers
suspected of plotting a coup against Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev, human rights activists and international observers are calling
for state investigators to release evidence to support the allegations.
Minister of Economic Development Farhad Aliyev and Minister
of Health Ali Insanov were arrested in October 2005, just weeks
before parliamentary elections that were seen as a key test of the
government’s commitment to democratization. [For details, see the
Azerbaijan Election feature]. Under the law, the state’s case against
the two former ministers should be heard by a court no later than
April 2007.
With just over three months to go before that deadline, however,
uncertainty surrounds the investigations. No details have been released
about the state’s case against either of the two men.
Officials cite the need to preserve the investigation’s confidentiality
as the cause. Commenting on Farhad Aliyev, General Prosecutor
spokesperson Vugar Aliyev affirmed that the Criminal Procedures Code
allows suspects to be detained for up to 18 months while authorities
complete an investigation. "With this particular case, the delays
are related to the fact that some of the investigative actions must
be conducted abroad, and some witnesses are not in the country,"
the spokesman said.
A former Interior Ministry official on trial for kidnapping and murder
earlier has also fingered Farhad Aliyev as responsible for the March
2005 murder of journalist Elmar Huseynov, but the ex-minister has
denied the charges. Attention for that accusation has since largely
faded. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The General
Prosecutor’s office has denied a December report by the Azerbaijani
agency APA that ex-Health Minister Insanov will be charged only with
"economic crimes," but not with plotting an uprising.
Critics of the government’s investigatory practices have tended to
focus on Farhad Aliyev, rather than the 60-year-old Insanov, a founder
of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party with a robust reputation among
many Azerbaijanis for corruption and mismanagement of the healthcare
system. The delay in bringing Aliyev to trial indicates that the state
cannot prove its case, the critics, many of them drawn from opposition
political circles, argue. Rather, they charge, political motives
and a squabble over business interests are driving the accusations
against Farhad and his brother, Rafig, the former head of state-run
oil company AzPetrol.
Jamil Hasanli, an opposition parliamentarian and head of the
Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Farhad and Rafig Aliyev,
argues that investigators’ inquiries go beyond the bounds of a coup
case. Hasanli claims that the property of close relatives of the
Aliyev brothers has been illegally seized. "All businesses that
enjoyed Farhad Aliyev’s support when he was a minister have been
‘invited’ to the Ministry of National Security, bribed, harassed,"
he charged. Though the ex-minister is in poor health, he continued,
Farhad Aliyev has not been allowed to see doctors provided by his
family. A committee of doctors and Ministry of Health officials
assembled by the National Security Ministry earlier stated that Aliyev
is in good health and does not require additional medical treatment.
Aliyev and Insanov were arrested following the October 2005 detention
of former Finance Minister Fikret Yusifov, whose testimony reportedly
prompted state law-enforcement agencies to start a coup case against
the other two ministers. [For background see the Eurasia Insight
archive]. Yusifov, named by state prosecutors as a mediator between
Farhad Aliyev and Rasul Guliyev, the exiled head of the opposition
Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, was later convicted only for carrying
a gun. He was released from prison on November 9, after serving a year
in jail. An arrest order for Yusifov still remains "in force," however,
Azerbaijani media outlets quoted Deputy Chief Prosecutor Rustam Usubov
as saying, and the former finance minister cannot leave the country.
Another official arrested in connection with the coup investigation,
former presidential administration manager Akif Muradverdiyev was
sentenced to five years in prison in December on corruption charges.
Since the arrest of Aliyev and Insanov, supporters have petitioned
various international bodies to bring pressure on the government —
so far, with few results. A case charging the Azerbaijani government
with violating Aliyev’s right to a fair trial has been brought before
the Council of Europe’s European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg,
but no hearing date has been set. Members of the US Senate and House of
Representatives have also sent questions and appeals to the Azerbaijani
government and the US Department of State on the topic.
But US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and
Labor Barry Lowenkron gave no indication that the coup investigation
played a major role in his talks with Azerbaijani officials during
a December visit to Baku. In his discussions, Lowenkron reportedly
stressed the need for greater press freedom in Azerbaijan, and
reiterated US interest in promoting a Nagorno-Karabakh peace
settlement. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Rights activists maintain that Farhad Aliyev and Insanov are actually
political prisoners; in Aliyev’s case, they argue that the minister
was arrested to put an end to his fight against business monopolies
run by rivals within President Ilham Aliyev’s administration. Some,
like Jamil Hasanli, go further, maintaining that the Russian security
services may have played a role in Aliyev’s arrest.
Azerbaijani officials, however, strongly deny that the arrest was
dictated by Moscow, or that Aliyev is the persecuted reformist that
his supporters portray him to be. Groups lobbying the US Congress
on behalf of the ex-minister are misrepresenting Farhad Aliyev as
a democrat and pro-Western politician, commented Tahir Kerimov,
a representative of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Washington, during a
December 2006 panel discussion on political prisoners in Azerbaijan
organized by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Washington, DC.
"Farhad Aliyev was one of the most criticized officials in the
opposition media for corruption," Kerimov noted.
Editor’s Note: Rovshan Ismayilov is a freelance journalist based
in Baku.