SECOND PARLIAMENT BRIBERY VIDEO IMPLICATES PRESIDENT ALIYEV AND HIS WIFE

Azadliq, Azeri Report

BAKU. October 8, 2012. Oppositional newspaper “Azadliq” has released
a second hidden cam video on Saturday where the leading MP from the
ruling YAP party, Gular Ahmadova, is asking for a million dollar bribe
for getting someone a seat in Azerbaijan’s national parliament. In
the new video, Ahmadova names the country’s President Ilham Aliyev
and his wife Mehriban Aliyeva among people directing lists of people
to be “elected” into the parliament (click here for the link to the
second video in Azeri).

In the new video, which seems to be another part of the million dollar
parliament seat bribe conversation revealed by the first video, MP
Gular Ahmadova chides Elshad Abdullayev for double-crossing her and
trying to work with other people, namely President Aliyev’s late uncle
Agil Aliyev, to secure his “election” to the parliament. She recalls
examples of two other people, mentioned as “Algish” and “Musa”, whom
she and her associates “got into the parliament”, but who went on to
work with others: jailed former minister Ali Insanov and the current
mayor of Baku Hajibala Abutalibov. “This time it can’t happen”,
warns Ahmadova.

Seconding her, Sevinj Babyeva, acting as the intermediary between
Ahmadova and Abdullayev, tells him “if you started working with Master
Ramiz [the head of Presidential Administration Ramiz Mehtiyev],
if you went with him, you have to keep on working with him”. This
seems to confirm that Gular Ahamadova was really representing Ramiz
Mehdiyev in the bribery scheme.

Then, in a striking conclusion, Ahmadova says: “You know, there people
who are Farhad’s people [jailed former minister Farhad Aliyev]. They
know that this is Farhad’s list; this is Ali Insanov’s list [another
jailed former minister]. They know this [list] is for Kamaladdin
Heydarov [the current top oligarch and minister of Emergency
Situations], this is for Ramiz Mehdiyev [the head of Presidential
Administration], this is for Ilham Aliyev [President], this is for
Mehriban Aliyeva [President’s wife].”

Both videos were sent to “Azadliq” newspaper by Elshad Abdullayev,
an exiled rector of a private university shut down by the government,
who now lives in France. He is the person with whom Gular Ahmadova is
seen haggling on the videos over the bribe amount. In his letter to
“Azadliq”, Abdullayev noted that he sent the second video in order to
prove that Ahmadova was not acting on her own behalf in the bribery
scheme, as some Azerbaijani officials claimed after the first video was
released. He knew that by herself Ahmadova was not capable to guarantee
someone a seat in the parliament. Rather, she has convinced him that
the bribe money will go to the head of Presidential Administration,
Ramiz Mehdiyev.

After the first video, Gular Ahmadova was expelled from the ruling
party and the parliament, and regime officials released statements
condemning both her and Abdullayev. However, many see this as
an attempt to use her as a scape-goat, while the more important
implications from the videos – the illegitimacy of the parliament and
the personal involvement in bribery schemes and election falsifications
by President Aliyev, his wife, and other high officials, like Ramiz
Mehdiyev – are conveniently overlooked.

(Azadliq, Azeri Report)