EurasiaNet: "Still no public results from coup investigation"

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. 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. 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. 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.

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.

By Rovshan Ismayilov

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