Azerbaijan: Air Force Commander's Assassination May Have Been Inside Job -- Baku Prosecutor
With their investigation ready to enter its eighth month, prosecutors in Baku are now pursuing the theory that Lt. Gen. Rail Rzayev, Azerbaijan's air force commander, was assassinated by his subordinates. Investigators remain mystified over the motive for the killing, however.
Rzayev was shot and killed early in the morning of February 11 while sitting in his car outside his apartment building in downtown Baku, a location scanned by multiple security cameras and 24-hour armed guards. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Law enforcement agencies investigating the death announced in May that they had developed a composite sketch of the suspected killer, but no arrests have been made. In May, President Ilham Aliyev appointed Maj. Gen. Altay Mehdiyev, a former army chief of staff for the exclave of Nakhchivan, Aliyev's home region, to fill Rzayev's command.
In an interview with EurasiaNet, General Prosecutor Zakir Garalov stated that the investigation into Rzayev's death "continues and it is under the control of President Aliyev." He did not comment on the investigation's rate of progress. Prosecutors are currently investigating "several people," including Lt. Gen. Rzayev's assistant, Maj. Aydin Rafiyev, his aide-de-camp, Capt. Anar Gashimov, and a few other army officers in connection with the crime, Garalov revealed. The Azerbaijani air force operates under the auspices of the country's army.
Shortly after Rzayev's murder, an unknown person entered the commander's office and stole "some items," Garalov said. He did not specify the items stolen. Both Rafiyev and Gashimov have been arrested in connection with the missing items.
Garalov indicated that the possibility exists that the two could be held accountable for the murder itself. "[T]he investigation does not exclude that these people are also involved in the general's murder," Garalov said. He added, however, that prosecutors are still searching to come up with a motive for the crime. "Foreign experts" are participating in the investigation, but Garalov did not state their nationality or institutional association.
A source in the Military Prosecutor's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, told EurasiaNet that a few Defense Ministry officials are also under investigation, including a relative of Lt. Gen. Rzayev, Lt. Col. Fuad Agarzayev, who works with the Azerbaijani air force and anti-aircraft defense forces.
Lt. Gen. Rzayev's widow, Mahira Rzayeva, declined to speak with EurasiaNet about the investigation, but said that she hopes that her husband's murderer will eventually be arrested.
Some experts, however, doubt that will ever happen.
One criminal law expert suggested that the suspected killer may not be Azerbaijani -- a situation that could complicate an arrest. The expert contended that the guilty party could be a contract killer with foreign citizenship. "He came to Baku, fulfilled the order [to kill Lt. Gen. Rzayev] and managed to leave Azerbaijan the same day or shortly after that," the expert speculated. Investigators may have opted to wait for the individual to commit another crime before attempting to arrest him or her, the expert added.
But if investigators have been unable to determine a motive after a seven-month probe, it seems unlikely that the passage of more time will help clarify matters, commented Eyyub Kerimov, a Baku-based lawyer and the editor-in-chief of Femida 007 (Justice 007), a newspaper that covers legal affairs. The lack of a presumed motive and arrested suspect "show the lack of any real progress in the investigation," Kerimov said.
Shahin Abbasov is a freelance correspondent based in Baku. He is also a board member of the Open Society Institute-Azerbaijan.
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