Azerbaijan is helping Russia circumvent energy sanctions, lawyer warns

Azerbaijani energy is no alternative to Russian gas and oil; on the contrary, Baku is helping Moscow circumvent sanctions. Zhala Bayramova said this in an interview with CTK. The Azerbaijani human rights lawyer travelled to Strasbourg this week to attend a European Parliament (EP) meeting on behalf of her father, Gubad Ibadoghlu, an imprisoned Azerbaijani economist and anti-corruption activist who is one of this year’s three finalists for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Although the authorities have transferred him to house arrest, Bayramova warns that her father’s life is in danger because he urgently needs heart surgery.

According to Bayramova, Ibadoghlu was detained because of his work exposing corruption and money laundering in Azerbaijan, particularly in connection with supplies of Russian oil and gas to Europe.

“My father exposed how Azerbaijan helps Russia resell oil and gas, which then end up in Europe as Azerbaijani products. He was the only person to address the issue systematically, and that is why they want to silence him,” the lawyer said.

Ibadoghlu, who lived in Britain, where he also founded a foundation to support Azerbaijani students abroad, was arrested on 23 July last year after travelling to Baku to visit his ailing mother. He is still under investigation. When he was detained, he was brutally assaulted, the EP noted last year in its resolution, adding that the investigation was politically motivated. Bayramova added that Ibadoghlu’s wife was also attacked and suffered serious injuries, but later managed to leave the country, partly thanks to pressure from the EP.

„My father’s main artery is dilated to 5.2 centimetres, which is above the threshold for emergency surgery. If it ruptures, he will die. Yet the Azerbaijani authorities are refusing to let him access medical care,“ Bayramova told CTK.

She said that even under house arrest, Ibadoghlu remains subject to a very strict regime, has no internet access and cannot communicate with the outside world.

„We also believe Azerbaijan lacks the expertise to carry out an operation of this kind successfully, so we are trying to save my father’s life by getting him out of the country as soon as possible,“ she added.

According to Bayramova, the entire family is being persecuted. „We receive death threats, our personal photos are published, and we are under constant surveillance. Azerbaijan is using the same methods against us as the Russian security services,“ she said.

She said she had been tortured by the police twice in Azerbaijan, suffering fractures to her ribs and knees. She is still a patient at the Red Cross centre for torture survivors in Malmö, Sweden.

According to Bayramova, countries such as Czechia that import Azerbaijani energy are well placed to put pressure on the country over human rights. „I’m not sure what they are doing about it, because they haven’t informed us, even though I have been in contact with them repeatedly,“ she said.

Ambassador Petr Válek of the Permanent Representation to the Council of Europe met Bayramova in Strasbourg in September. She also met with other diplomats in Prague and Brussels this year, and last year Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský spoke with her on the sidelines of the Forum 2000 conference in Prague, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Daniel Drake confirmed in response to a question from CTK.

„We are following the case closely. It was explicitly mentioned in a resolution by the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, and we had previously joined a statement in Strasbourg at the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers’ Deputies,“ the spokesperson added.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has been in power since 2003, when his father Heydar Aliyev died. His father had ruled Azerbaijan even before the collapse of the USSR as a prominent member of the Communist Party. A few years ago, Aliyev also had the creation of the post of vice-president approved in a referendum and subsequently appointed his wife to the position. Human rights organisations have long raised concerns about human rights violations, the persecution of Azerbaijani dissidents and restrictions on freedom of expression.