Azerbaijani Former Minister Arrested - New York Times
October 20, 2005
Former Azerbaijani Minister Arrested
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:16 p.m. ET
BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) -- Azerbaijan's fired economic development minister has
been charged with plotting a coup with an exiled opposition leader, authorities
said Thursday, raising anxieties two weeks before parliamentary elections.
Farhad Aliev, who was fired on Wednesday, was arrested the same day on charges
of conspiring with opposition leader Rasul Guliyev to incite unrest and seize
power, a government statement said.
Frequent street protests Azerbaijan have stirred government fears of an uprising
similar to those that helped topple the government in three other former Soviet
republics -- Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan -- following flawed elections over
the past two years.
Ukraine authorities detained Guliyev on Monday as he was trying to return to
Azerbaijan to run in Nov. 6 parliamentary elections. A Ukraine court ordered him
released Thursday, ruling that Azerbaijan provided insufficient evidence to
justify holding him pending an attempt to extradite him on charges of
misappropriating state funds, a court official said.
Guliyev, a former parliament speaker who lives in the United States in
self-imposed exile, denied conspiring to overthrow the government.
''I don't know Farhad Aliev, never had had contact with him and never even saw
his photograph,'' Guliyev told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Azerbaijan authorities have to pledged arrest Guliyev if he returns to the
Caspian Sea nation, a country of strategic importance to the West because it is
the starting point for a new pipeline that will bring oil to Western markets.
The exiled leader still plans to return home, said Isa Gambar, a leader of the
Musavat party, which is part of an opposition bloc that includes Guliyev's
party.
President Ilham Aliev also dismissed Health Minister Ali Insanov and Chief of
Staff Akif Muradverdiy, according to a presidential decree published by state
news agency Azertaj, but it was not immediately clear if they were accused of
involvement in the alleged coup.
Police searched the homes of Insanov and Education Minister Misir Mardanov, said
a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of his post.
The Interfax news agency, citing an unnamed official, reported that Mardanov and
Labor Minist...