A court in Sabail, a suburb of the Azerbaijani capital Baku, has ordered the release of two former officials from the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan from jail. Instead, they will be placed under house arrest.
Farhad Mollazade and Salim Alizade, who served as head and senior official of the administrative department of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, were detained along with several other foreign service officials several months ago.
They were apprehended by the Azerbaijani security service on charges of embezzlement and misappropriation of ministry funds.
Following allegations of mismanagement, irregularities, and corruption within the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry under Elmar Mammadyarov, who was the longest-serving minister, a series of high-profile arrests were made within the scandal-ridden agency.
Mollazade and Alizade are the latest officials to be placed under house arrest following a string of arrests that targeted high-ranking Azerbaijani foreign service officials.
Some social media users have expressed dissatisfaction, pointing out the earlier release of officials accused of corruption to house arrest as lenient treatment.
Currently, only one former ambassador, Eldar Hasanov, who also served as prosecutor general of Azerbaijan, remains in jail pending further court proceedings. Hasanov previously served as Azerbaijani ambassador to Romania and Serbia and was embroiled in a wide range of corruption scandals during his tenure.
Dozens of diplomats were jailed, dismissed, interrogated, and demoted following years of accusations of wrongdoing within the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, headed by Mammadyarov.
Mammadyarov was publicly disgraced and dismissed by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in July 2020. Hikmat Hajiyev, an aide to the president on foreign policy affairs, was reportedly involved in Mammadyarov’s downfall, despite being considered his protégé. Sources within the government claimed that Hajiyev also facilitated the appointments of his close friends and former fellow students to positions within the president’s office, raising questions of cronyism and nepotism.
Mammadyarov was replaced by Jeyhun Bayramov, who was previously the minister of education. Despite the removal of some pro-Mammadyarov officials from the Foreign Ministry, Bayramov, who lacks diplomatic background and experience, is viewed as weak and ineffective. Reports suggest that he has failed to fully address the issue of corruption within the Azerbaijani foreign service inherited from the ‘Mammadyarov era’.
