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Azerbaijani law enforcement agencies took under their control the activities of the Ministry of National Security (MNS) about a year ago, Azerbaijani information portal Haqqin.az writes.

According to the portal, the MNS became the main punitive sword in fight against the development and formation of the small and middle-size business in the country. The activities of the Azerbaijani business elite and well-known representatives of medium-sized business were surveilled with audio spying equipment on Minister Eldar Makhmudov’s order. The MNS generals and Akif Chovdarov, the Minister’s “cashier” also took an active part in the process. Later, discrediting material was specially filed against those businesspersons, and consequently, the snatch squad of the MNS conducted illegal arrests of businesspeople on the order of the leadership. 

“The businessmen were held in the MNS jail for weeks, sometimes months. 350 thousand manats were collected from the entrepreneurs for cancelling the preventive measure arrest. Nonetheless, the people, who were trapped in Mahmudov and his cashier Chovdarov’s web, had to pay more millions to get out of the MNS jail and regain freedom,” Haqqin.az highlights.

According to the website, hundreds of businesspeople sent telegrams and letters to the President Ilham Aliyev. However, Aliyev had barely managed to warn the government members about the impermissibility of their illegal activities, when literally a few days ago the general Akif Chovdarov initiated the detention of a group of 20 businesspeople. They were all sent to the MNS jail, tortured and treated inhumanly. Akif Chovdarov, speaking with them from the MNS leadership’s behalf, demanded 400 thousand manats from each of them. The businesspeople had no other choice than to pay the demanded money and gain freedom. The head of state was informed about this, which, according to Haqqin.az, became the last drop that filled the cup of the authorities’ patience.

Minval.az cites Qazqaz.info as writing that Mahmudov was not ashamed to lie to the president. An investigation conducted on Ilham Aliyev’s special order revealed that a group of high-ranking officials, led by Eldar Mahmudov, had been engaged in criminal actions against entrepreneurs for a long period of time and gained millions. Some of them are arrested at the moment, and the actions of Eldar Mahmudov, Major-General Akif Chovdarov, General Lieutenant Hilal Asadov and other general are under investigation.
The website of the Azerbaijani newspaper Musavat points out that a high-ranking official from Russia, the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bastrykin, was in Baku the day before Ilham Aliyev’s decree to dismiss the minister. “Did Bastrykin’s current Baku visit merely coincide with the events in the MNS?” the newspaper wonders. It further notes that according to one of the versions, Eldar Mahmudov was a pro-Western figure and cooperated with the leadership of the special services of the US and Israel. In the period of rapprochement with Russia, the MNS head cooperating with the West could not remain on his post, Musavat writes.

The newspaper also reminds that the information about Mahmudov’s dismissal appeared this March, when the fact about his relative, former chairman of the Board of the International Bank of Azerbaijan, Jahangir Hajiyev, having robbed the bank, leaked. The controlling stake of the bank belongs to the state. Hajiyev had issued million-worth loans to entrepreneurs, companies and factories standing close to him. Soon it was known that the authorities had lost their trust in the head of the MNS.

According to the report, during a meeting of the state committee on a burnt building, Ilham Aliyev said that entrepreneurs had robbed the state assets and resources and that a group of people had appropriated the state property in the period of the financial crisis resulted from the drop of oil prices. He called “people with dirty intentions” those who decided to make a fortune taking advantage of manat devaluation.

Musavat writes that according to reliable information, Hajiyev had changed a very huge sum of money into dollars a few days before February devaluation of manat. The fact that the main guilty of the robbery of the bank is Mahmudov’s closest person and that Mahmudov did not report those crimes to the President, arises many questions.

The date Eldar Mahmudov was fired, 17 October, reminds Musavat of events that took place 10 years ago. Two most powerful ministers, Ali Insanov and Farhad Aliyev, were arrested on 17 October 2005 on charges of “attempt of coup d’etat.” The operation was led by Mahmudov, and now an operation has been unfolded against him.

“The whole information concerning the MNS is, naturally, kept secret. Still I have some versions over the minister’s resignation. First, Mahmudov could have possessed important information about threats to Azerbaijan’s state security while doing nothing about it or hiding it from the leadership of the country on purpose. Second, the former MNS head could have intentionally supported anti-Azerbaijan projects funded by some foreign countries. Third, an illegal surveillance of the country’s high-ranking officials was conducted with the aim of blackmailing and profiteering in the future,” Fazail Aghamali, an Azerbaijani MP, said, as cited by Sputnik-Azerbaijan.

According to Vadim Mukhanov, Senior Fellow at the Center for the Caucasus and Regional Security of MGIMO-University of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the resignation of the Minister of National Security of Azerbaijan is connected with the upcoming parliamentary elections in the country as well as President Ilham Aliyev’s attitude to the reaction of the Ministry to the growing social discontent in the country, RIA Novosti reports.

The analyst added that over the recent years, the situation in Azerbaijan has been a topic of discussion for the Russian and foreign experts, and it is not considered stable and foreseeable. “It is stable only if viewed considering that the authorities’ format is clear. A certain clan has the authority, and it gives a ground to many for saying that everything is calm there,” Mukhanov told RIA.

He noted that such loud resignations are not typical of Azerbaijan. “The upper echelons of power are rather clear. They were formed up rather long ago. Aliyev Junior inherited the circle of the high officials in Azerbaijan from his father,” he said. He is inclined to consider the MNS head’s resignation ahead of elections as a sign that “Ilham Aliyev might be thinking of gradually changing the old officials and the administration of Heydar Aliyev’s times with some new figures, that is, he thinks of renewing the team.”

“The President is the head of the Supreme Executive Power, that is why no one has the right to comment or discuss the decision someone made,” said the deputy executive secretary of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party and member of the security and defense committee of the Parliament, Siyavush Novruzov, as cited by Report.az.

APA agency reports that criminal cases over violation of law have been filed in the MNS of Azerbaijan. Governmental sources told the agency that an investigative commission has been created on the case consisting of staffers of the Special State Protection Service (SSPS) of Azerbaijan and Prosecutor General’s Office. The first deputy Prosecutor General, Rustam Usubov, will chair the commission.
There are also reports about the detention of 10 high-ranking MNS officials. According to APA, arrest was chosen as preventive measure against some of them under the Articles 308 (Abusing official powers) and 309 (Excess of official powers) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. The investigation revealed various criminal offences, including oppressions and facts of blackmailing entrepreneurs, conducting of checks not within the competence of the MNS, groundless investigations among others. The information about Mahmudov’s arrest has not been confirmed.

According to Report.az, the arrest of the MNS staffers will last for three months.

The website writes that the chief of Sabail district police, Colonel Ilgar Mahmudov, who is the former minister’s cousin, was dismissed from his post on a corresponding order. However, Trend agency denies the report. It was told at Sabail police that Mahmudov is currently in his office, and that there has been no order or decision about his dismissal.
On October 17 2015, President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, signed a decree to dismiss the Minister of National Security, Eldar Mahmudov Ahmad oglu, from his post.

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