According to AssA-Irada, the 23 defendants on trial include former officers of the ministry and interior troops, and four ethnically Chechen citizens of Russia.

Haji Mammadov's gang was neutralized by the National Security Ministry's special troops in the "Black belt" operation last March that aimed to free the abducted spouse of the International Bank chairman Zamira Hajiyeva.

Investigators have established so far that the defendants were involved in a number of killings, including those of a department head at the Interior Ministry's drug enforcement department, an official from the Prosecutor General's Office and vice-president of the Azerbaijan Football Federations Association (AFFA).

/AzerNEWS/