Three Azerbaijani citizens who ‘committed serious crimes on the orders of foreign intelligence services’ have been detained in an unnamed unspecified foreign country and brought back to Azerbaijan by the State Security Service (DTX).
According to the DTX, 30-year-old Amid Mammadov, 42-year-old Edik Israfilov, and 28-year-old Nurlan Safarov were extradited to Azerbaijan on Wednesday.
The DTX said the detainees were accused of participation outside the country in the activities of armed groups not provided for by the legislation of Azerbaijan.
They additionally claimed the committed crimes included ‘the creation of illegal armed groups consisting of Azerbaijani citizens, as well as the use of these individuals by foreign intelligence services for espionage, sabotage, terrorist, and subversive purposes’.
The DTX has not specified the country from which the three suspects were extradited.
One of the detainees, Amid Mammadov, is a Second Nagorno-Karabakh War veteran. His family lives in the village of Mikailli in the Jalilabad district, and after the war, his brother, fellow veteran Nahid Mammadov, complained on social media about unemployment and difficult living conditions.
In April 2021, he refused the medals and diplomas presented to him by President Ilham Aliyev after the war.
In January 2022, Nahid Mammadov and his grandmother released a video message to the public, announcing that his father, Samaddin Mammadov, and his brother Amid, had been detained for criticising the government. According to Pravda, their father was arrested for hooliganism and released in February 2022.
According to the pro-government media outlet Milli.az, Amid Mammadov himself previously served a five-year prison sentence on charges for hooliganism, or the use of weapons or objects as weapons, after being sentenced in 2014.
Recently, another Azerbaijani citizen who fought on Russia’s side in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine was convicted under the same article and was also detained in July by the DTX.
On 28 November, the Ganja Court of Grave Crimes sentenced 51-year-old Ismail Hasanov to three years and six months in prison after finding him guilty of participating in the activities of an armed group.
Hasanov had fought with the Russian private military group Wagner in Ukraine for six months between 2022–2023.
Aytan Farhadova
