BY LADA YEVGRASHINA

BAKU

Azerbaijan’s leadership swiftly reacted to an incident involving an MP from the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party (YAP) as one of its lawmakers was stripped of his parliamentary immunity, arrested, and ordered to spend three months in pre-trial detention.

Milli Mejlis MP Eldaniz Salimov was ordered locked up following a late-night brawl in a Caspian Sea resort town two hours north of Baku.

Prosecutors say he was visibly inebriated and refused to leave the “Old Yard” café in the town of Nabran, a well-known summer beach haunt lined with thick pine trees.

He then allegedly beat a policeman, Zaur Mirza, who had come to warn the watering hole, the MP and his guests they were in contravention of the COVID-19 restrictions. Under the rules, eating and drinking establishments must close by midnight.

The July 29 altercation, said prosecutors, occurred at 1 A.M. They said that ruling party MP Salimov had refused to leave, arguing that the hang-out belonged to one of his relatives.

It took just days before the country’s general prosecutor appeared before a hastily convened mid-summer special parliament session to formally request the lifting of his MP’s immunity so that Salimov could be arrested. The request passed the 125-member body easily.

ANOTHER SIGNAL THAT PRESIDENT SERIOUS ABOUT ZERO TOLERANCE

What was interesting was not only that Salimov was from the ruling party, which controls most parliament seats, but that a YAP deputy’s immunity had been formally lifted.

It comes amid a campaign – openly declared as a major priority for the government of President Ilham Aliyev and his wife, First Lady and First Deputy Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva –  of cracking down on corruption and misconduct by officials.

The president and first lady have been married for almost three decades and diplomats have long seen her as highly influential.

Her profile dramatically increased when she was formally made first vice-president in 2019.

Since then, former “untouchables” such as the head of the country’s Presidential Administration, Ramiz Mehdiyev, who held the post for 24 years dating back to the days of Ilham Aliyev’s father, Heydar Aliyev, was forced out of his job as the effective “grey cardinal”.

Salimov is charged under Article 309.2 (abuse of office) of the Criminal Code, apparently a reference to using his MP’s privileges to get around the COVID regulations and defy the police.

He theoretically faces a maximum of three to seven years in prison and could have his property confiscated.

Speaking in the Milli Mejlis on August 3, Prosecutor General Kamran Aliyev said there were serious grounds for depriving Salimov of his parliamentary immunity.

“Azerbaijan is successfully fighting the pandemic under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev and the country’s First Vice President, Mehriban Aliyeva, is also making an important contribution to this fight.

“A large burden in this area falls on the Ministry of Internal Affairs employees, who punish violations of the quarantine regime. MP Eldaniz Salimov violated the law,” the Prosecutor General said.

Salimov has been a ruling party MP since 2015 though he was not considered a top official. Yeni Azerbaijan expelled him from the party ranks on August 2 over the incident, even before his MP’s immunity was lifted.

Independent political analyst Azer Gasimli told the Tribune: “By his behaviour, Eldaniz Salimov violated the rules of the game within the government.”

“Here we are dealing with the fact that Salimov, a representative of the legislature, (being involved in) an assault against a representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” he said.

Ruling party members have rarely been prosecuted before, and Salimov’s case is the first in which a YAP MP formally lost their parliamentary immunity. One was forced from the party and abandoned her seat seven years ago after local media alleged she had been involved in financial fraud.

According to ruling party MP Hikmet Babaoglu, “All citizens in Azerbaijan are equal before the law.”

“Removing Salimov’s immunity shows no one is above the law in Azerbaijan. This is directed at changing the legal implications in the fight against corruption and abuses of power. This increases the confidence of our society in our law enforcement system,” Babaoglu said.

Another leading ruling party MP, Musa Guliyev, said Salimov was a board member of the party and his behaviour suggested that more caution is needed in selecting party cadres.

“The party should be more careful in choosing its members in the future. Salimov made an unforgivable mistake,” said Guliyev.

CRACKDOWN ON OFFICIAL MISCONDUCT AND CORRUPTION AFTER MILITARY VICTORY

Salimov’s arrest is just the latest in the crusade against misdeeds by government officials. It follows Aliyev’s official confirmation at the ruling party congress earlier this year that he was stepping up an anti-corruption drive.

This comes after Azerbaijan scored a decisive victory over Armenia during a six-week military blitz.  At least 7,000 people – over 95 percent military – were killed in the offensive in which Armenian forces were forced from districts of Azerbaijan they had occupied for 25-30 years.

Sporadic fighting continues along their international border – which has yet to be formally demarcated by a bilateral agreement.

Despite a 2020 armistice brokered by Moscow, there is still no formal peace agreement. A power vacuum in Armenia has not helped progress – Prime Minister Nikol Pahinyan won snap elections in June but is only now finishing assembling a new cabinet.

“Aliyev is now able to go after people he could not afford to touch before because of the war,” one regional diplomat said.

ONE AMONG A LONG LIST OF THOSE ROUNDED UP

As evidence of this, Salimov will have good company in detention-one of many who have crossed a new red line.

Rasim Mammadov, who led his steel company for more than 12 years, was detained in December 2020 after an official audit of the firm.

After four months of pre-detention, he was officially charged in March 2021 by the State Security Service (SGB) under Articles 308.2 (exceeding official powers, resulting in significant damage), 178.3.2 (fraud, causing significant damage) and 179.4 (misappropriation and embezzlement, causing damage on an especially large scale) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan.

“Mammadov embezzled 13.2 million (₼) manats ($7.8 million) — from sales proceeds, and also caused damage to the company to the amount of 42 million manats,” the State Security Service said in a statement.

Jailed steel boss Mammadov was seen as a key patron of purged éminence grise Ramiz Mehdiyev. Mehdiyev threw his weight around in many, if not most, decisions.

But in October 2019, the so-called Conseliergo’s 24-year spree ground to a halt. Mehdiyev was removed and relegated to the harmless post of President of the National Academy of Sciences, a job with academic cachet, though far from his former position influencing the affairs of state.

It was a post that seemed almost designed to save the octogenarian from a worse fate caused by further self-inflicted wounds.

Mehdiyev was known to hand out appointments to key positions according to a “clan” or kinship principle, a delicate balance of power.

However, tolerance with this approach seems to have come to come to an end.

Others arrested in recent months have been two former top officials from the country’s main security body on charges of bribe-taking.

Several officials from Baku city’s Executive Committee were also charged with exceeding powers or illegal activity, as were several other regional officials.