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Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree 20 October to appoint the Deputy Justice Minister and Head of the Penitentiary Service of Azerbaijan, Lieutenant-general Madat Guliyev, a first deputy Minister of National Security of Azerbaijan, Azertag reports, according to Haqqin.az.

Turan agency points out that there has been no official report about the fate of the former Minister of National Security or his surroundings three days after his dismissal. Meanwhile, all the media outlets, including state-owned, reported about criminal cases initiated against some arrested MNS staffers under articles on excess of official powers.

“It is certain that the law enforcement system of the country experiences the most serious crisis since 2005, when a group of killers headed by Colonel Haji Mammadov was discovered in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Ironically, it was the MNS under Eldar Mahmudov’s leadership that unmasked the criminal group,” Turan highlights.

Among the versions about the reason of Mahmudov’s dismissal, the economical factor is the most circulated one, implying extortion from big businesses, which resulted in an overall loss of trust of the authorities.

“However, the experts’ opinions also overlap in that such embezzlement and crimes would be impossible without the connivance of the top leadership. In that sense, the bargaining over billions of manats of the International Bank is the most vivid example,” Turan notes.

The agency also reports that the Prosecutor’s Office Tuesday confirmed the information about the arrest of seven officials from the MNS during the investigation the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) carried out after Eldar Mahmudov’s dismissal. The investigative operations revealed facts of the MNS officials’ illegal intervention in entrepreneurs’ activities, the MIA said in a statement.

In a Facebook comment, Azerbaijani political scientist Arastun Orujlu wrote that the former MNS head had included him in the list of his enemies and used all the methods attempting to avenge himself on him for all this time. “He has more than once reported to the leadership of the country on my ‘ties’ with different special services. He wanted to make sure I was arrested. His imagination went beyond the limit of the human mind,” the political scientist wrote, as cited by Minval.az.

Orujlu wrote that Mahmudov had reached for the circles of the Turkish President’s close relatives with the help of his business partner, a well-known billionaire in Turkey. He tried to get Erdogan’s support to become the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan. “Aliyev knew this more than thoroughly. However, he did not make up his mind to touch him because Russia stood behind the minister. The first attempt to fire the MNS boss was undertaken in early 2009, yet t was cancelled after April 30 of that year,” Orujlu pointed.

Minval.az highlights the growing number of the versions as for why Mahmudov was dismissed. The website got an anonymous letter whose authors write that a number of Azerbaijani officials have been receiving swearwords and threats on WhatsApp for about a month. The letter claims that the MNS server had been hacked and 250 GB secret information had been stolen from there, and that it was the reason why the President of the country fired the minister.

Arif Mammadov, the former Ambassador of OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) to the EU, issued a sensational statement concerning Elmar Mahmudov’s dismissal. He said the former minister had created a big clan inside the authority circles. The clan he headed included many well-known ministers, whom he protected from the Presidential Administration. In addition, many MNS officials, Mahmudov’s people, who work in Azerbaijani Embassies abroad, will follow suit of diplomats and refuse to return to Azerbaijan appealing for a political immigrant’s status.

A search was carried out in the first deputy minister of national security of Azerbaijan, Hilal Asadov’s house, Minval.az reports.
An informed source told Minval.az that Hilal Asadov, normally accompanied by two people in civilian clothes, had this time taken 10 people to his downtown flat. “After the search in the flat on 18 May 28 Street, Asadov and those people were taken in an unknown direction. Documents were seized during the search,” Minval.az reports.

The website reminds that during a special operation, the majority of the MNS leadership was taken under control. In particular, 12 top officials of the Ministry, including Hilal Asadov, Akif Chovdarov, Ilgar Aliyev, Natavan Mammadova and others, have been arrested. The Prosecutor General’s Office filed criminal cases under the articles 302 (Infringement of the legislation on operative - search activity), 308 (Abusing official powers) and 309 (Excess of official powers) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan.
In another article, Minval.az reports that a list of entrepreneurs, who have suffered because of the excess of official powers of the MNS officials, is being compiled. Some of the listed entrepreneurs are expected to testify. One of them told Minval.az that two months before, he had been invited to the Antiterrorism Center of the MNS, where he was told that they could make him an “Osama bin Laden or a drug lord” if they wished. “They told him about his business entities in Baku, restaurants, cars and the university where his child was studying. They demanded a certain ‘fee’ from him – 250 thousand manats,” the website writes.

According to the entrepreneur, he was told he would be sued in case he failed to pay the sum. He had to sell his entities for half-price in order to be able to gather that money.

“I gave them 120 thousand manats, which I had received as pledge for an entity. Only then was I released. I paid up the remaining 130 thousand next month, after receiving it gradually from a buyer of my entity,” the victim said. He stressed that in case he filed a complaint back then, they would eliminate his whole kindred.

Minval.az reports that Eldar Mahmudov’s business empire and his high-ranking relatives became a topic of serious discussions in Azerbaijan after his dismissal. According to the information the website received, after Eldar Mahmudov was appointed in the post of the head of the MNS of the country, he helped his relative Beytullah Huseynov to become the CEO of the Baku Telephone Connection ltd, a position of strategic importance for Baku. Mahmudov might have probably surveilled high officials’ phones with the help of his relative. Consequently, according to the website, the law enforcement forces took the staff of Baku Telephone Connection under control, and arrested Beytullah Heseynov.

On 17 October 2015, President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, signed a decree to dismiss the Minister of National Security, Eldar Mahmudov Ahmad oglu, from his post. Reportedly, an investigation revealed that a group of high-ranking officials had been engaged in criminal actions against entrepreneurs for a long period and gained millions. 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 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 leadership’s order.

Related:
Why was Azerbaijan Minister of National Security dismissed? Experts comment 
Media reports: Former MNS head of Azerbaijan surveilled business elite and filed discrediting information