Prominent opposition leader Gubad Ibadoglu detained in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani authorities have sent opposition politician and economist Gubad Ibadoglu to jail, allegedly on suspicion of counterfeiting and links to disgraced Turkish religious figure Fethullah Gülen, whom Ankara accused of planning a 2016 coup.

However, Ibadoglu himself believes that the regime in Baku is simply trying to oust him from the political scene.

“I was arrested on orders [президента Азербайджана] Ilham Aliyev! Ibadoglu shouted to reporters as he was put into a police car.

Gubad Ibadoglu, well-known Azerbaijani economist and politician (Photo: Meydan TV)

Politics, his wife and several other people were detained during the July 23 raid. Ibadoglu will spend four months behind bars.

Jala Bayramova, Ibadoglu’s daughter, said her parents were beaten and her father was not allowed to receive life-saving medication. Ibadoglu’s wife was soon released.

Ibadoglu lives in the UK and teaches at the International Relations Department of the London School of Economics. In early July, he returned to Azerbaijan due to his mother’s illness.

Azeri and Turkish pro-government media reported that at least five people were arrested during an operation by the Azerbaijani authorities against the allegedly terrorist organization FETÖ.

The Azerbaijani Interior Ministry later confirmed that Ibadoglu had indeed been arrested for alleged links to FETÖ and added that the law enforcement officers were acting on information from Turkish colleagues.

The name FETÖ was given by Turkish officials to a group of supporters of Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish cleric who now lives in the US. The Turkish government accuses him of planning a coup d’état in July 2016. Over the past seven years, the Turkish authorities have carried out numerous operations, arresting and imprisoning thousands of people.

Azerbaijan and Türkiye are closely cooperating on security issues.

The police searched the Ibadoglu office. Opposition lawyer Zibeyda Sadigova said they seized dozens of documents and $40,000.

“They will check if this money is counterfeit or not,” Sadigova said.

Initially, Ibadoglu was accused of counterfeiting, for which you can go to prison for a term of five to seven years. However, Sadigova told local media that the day after her arrest, authorities filed other, more serious charges, carrying eight to twelve years in prison.

Officially, the charges against Ibadoglu are based on the testimony of Anar Aliyev – this is one of the detainees, who allegedly also supports FETÖ. According to Sadigova, Aliyev claimed that Ibadoglu gave him counterfeit dollars, but her client does not even know Aliyev.

Ibadoglu not only teaches at the university, but also heads the Azerbaijan Democracy and Prosperity Party, which the authorities refused to register. The new law, which came into force in January 2023, has created new obstacles to the formation of political parties, drawing criticism from human rights activists both at home and abroad.

In June, Ibadoglu, together with Azerbaijani oppositionists Jamil Hasanli and Arif Mammadov, established a foundation in the UK called the Azerbaijani Youth Education Foundation (Azerbaijan Youth Educational Foundation). On his Facebook page, Ibadoglu said that the fund would receive donations, as well as funds seized from corrupt Azerbaijani elites.

“One of the goals of the fund is to train specialists for the future of Azerbaijan,” Ibadoglu wrote. “Donations will be the source of funding. In addition, funding is planned at the expense of seized money that was stolen from the people and from the state budget.”

Ibadoglu wrote on Facebook that the fund will contact the relevant authorities with a request to transfer the confiscated funds to it. In recent years, the UK has seized millions of dollars from politically connected Azerbaijanis in what is believed to be laundered illegal proceeds.

In the next publication, Ibadoglu wrote that because of the fund, a smear campaign was launched against him.

And in early July, another Azerbaijani public figure, a former deputy of the Milli Majlis, Nazim Beydamirli, was arrested and sent to a pre-trial detention center for four months.

He criticized the authorities for failing to address the public health and environmental problems that plague residents of a village in the Gadabay region of western Azerbaijan. Local residents opposed the creation of an artificial lake: they want to drain waste from a nearby gold mine, which is being developed there. hzikhidtidekrt the English.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs said that an investigation against Beidamirli had been launched because someone had filed a lawsuit against him: “A citizen turned to the police with a statement that N. Beidamirli threatened him and demanded 50,000 manats (almost 30,000 dollars) from him.” , the press service of the ministry said.