6 years pass since act of terrorism in Azerbaijan Oil Academy; details of tragedy still remain unknown
Today marks six years since the tragedy in the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy (ASOA). 12 people were killed and 13 were injured as a result of the slaughter in the ASOA on April 30, 2009. Farda Gadirov who had perpetrated the massacre killed himself on the spot. Javidan Amirov, Nadir Aliyev, Najaf Suleymanov were accused of being involved in the crime and given life sentences. Arif Gabulov was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment. All the accused except Suleymanov said they had testified under pressure.
A year ago Azerbaijani political scientist Arastun Orujlu told Minval.az that 5 years before he had immediately learnt about the act of terrorism as his office was very close to the Academy building. He highlighted that the law enforcement agencies of Azerbaijan acted extremely unprofessionally. He said everything was done in an ostentatious way.
Orujlu noted that the information the media published by then varied. There was also reliable information, for instance, about two black Jeeps with tinted windows driving away from the scene of the incident immediately after the shootout. Later that piece of information, as well as other materials, was removed. The political scientist pointed that Ali Hasanov, head of department in the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan, was the first to make a statement concerning the issue rather than the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of National Security or Prosecutor’s Office representatives. Hasanov said that the incident was a murder motivated by hooliganism, and a criminal case was filed under that article.
The expert said the trial was judged by Ramella Allahverdiyeva who has the reputation of being ‘bought off.’ The defendants spoke about tortures and the witnesses said that Gadirov had not been in the building at all, but rather someone else. By the end of the trial even the family members of those killed and injured were not present in the court.
“Everyone understood that it was a ‘bilge’ rather than a court hearing,” Orujlu said adding that he went on with his own investigation and in that connection an encroachment was organized on him on December 15, 2009: someone wanted to make up an accident by unwinding the screws of his car tire.
“It turned out at the end of the trial that the guys were sentenced under the article ‘terrorism.’ They even found the taxi driver – an Armenian from a district in Georgia densely populated with Azerbaijanis. ‘He turned out’ to be an Armenian scout and the organizer of the terrorist attack. A few days after the act of terrorism I said that an Armenian trace would be found in the case and it would be closed on that,” Orujlu noted.
He said it was the best option to turn everything on Armenia. “Then we learnt something sensational: despite the official statements it turned out that the Armenian citizen of Georgia, who was suspected of organizing the act of terrorism, is not on the INTERPOL’s wanted list. One of the lawyers of the young people accused of the crime filed an official request to the Georgian law enforcement agencies and to the INTERPOL and got an official letter saying that they had not received any appeal by Azerbaijan regarding that person. Such a gross falsification. In a word, the terrorist attack that took place in the ASOA building is a crime which cannot be discovered by the investigators’ and judges’ efforts but rather with the political will of the top officials of the country,” Orujlu highlighted.
Azerbaijani authorities do not allow the youth to commemorate the victims of the tragedy and disperse them every year.
In 2010 Azerbaijani parties and youth groups intended to hold a rally of memory by the Academy building, but the Azerbaijani authorities did not let them do that. The Azerbaijani police detained a number of youth group activists and took them to the police station when they attempted to hold the rally dedicated to the anniversary of the tragedy by the monument to Jafar Jabbarli, Azerbaijani information agency Trend reported.
In 2011 information agency Turan wrote that police units and people in civilian clothes had taken Jafar Jabbarli square in front of the metro station May 28 under control since morning of April 30 in order not to allow the youth to gather to commemorate the victims of the act of terrorism.
In 2012 Turan reported that the participants of the event wanted to put carnations by the building but the amplified police units who had blocked the way to the building barred them. They started to push aside the young people cruelly and beat some of them. Jamil Hajiyev, an activist of the youth organization of the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan was violently beaten and detained. Meanwhile a noteworthy incident took place: the taxi driver into whose car the policemen pushed the detained activist refused to take them. “It is my car and I decide who I take and who not,” the driver declared demanding that the police leave his car. Such a deed is rather a scarce phenomenon and can be regarded as the ordinary citizens’ protest against the police’s inhumane behavior.
Ghumashyan Mardun Grigorevich, 60-year-old Armenian, citizen of Georgia was named as the customer of the massacres in Oil Academy of Azerbaijan. It was reported that he was under the investigation of Interpol. However, correspondent of newspaper Yeni Musavat Tofig Yagublu determined to find out the truth went to Georgian village Shulaver and without any help from Interpol found Ghumashyan in the courtyard of his house. The interview with 60-year-old baker became a sensation. As it turned out Mardun Ghumashyan didn’t know anything about Farda Gadirov who initiated the massacres in Oil Academy.
Moreover, when Ghumashyan learnt that Azerbaijani authorities declared him a “terrorist,” he appealed to the General Prosecutor’s Office and Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, where he learnt that Azerbaijan made no appeals about his arrest. In its turn, Azerbaijani newspaper Zerkalo appealed to the law enforcement bodies of Georgia. “Person on duty of Ministry of Internal Affairs told our correspondent that the Ministry didn’t get any appeals in regard to Mardun Ghumashyan. This proves that Ghumashyan told the truth,” Zerkalo wrote.
Related:
Azerbaijani authorities ban commemoration of terrorist attack victims that occured in ASOA
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