EurasiaNet Civil Society - Azerbaijan: Murder Investigation Sparks Increasing Controversy

CIVIL SOCIETY

AZERBAIJAN: MURDER INVESTIGATION SPARKS INCREASING CONTROVERSY
Khadija Ismailova and Shahin Abbasov 4/20/05

The investigation into the murder of a leading opposition journalist in Azerbaijan is generating an increasing amount of skepticism in Baku. Family members of the slain journalist, Elmar Huseinov, say that authorities are denying them access to information concerning the case. Meanwhile, a local watchdog group claims that investigators are overlooking key witnesses.

Huseinov, the 38-year-old editor-in-chief of the pro-opposition Monitor magazine was shot and killed in the stairwell of his apartment building on March 2. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. One of Azerbaijan’s best known dissident journalists, Huseinov had frequently tangled with authorities, prompting some critics of President Ilham Aliyev’s administration to wonder whether the killing was politically motivated.

Six individuals, all taxi drivers working in Huseinov’s neighborhood, are believed to have been arrested by police in connection with the murder investigation. As of April 18, all but one, Tugay Bairamov, had been released, sources tell EurasiaNet. Bairamov’s lawyer, Namizad Safarov, reports that he has not been allowed to meet with his client. Under Azerbaijani law, suspects can only be held for 48 hours without being charged. Local media have also not been able to speak with any of the suspects since their release.

Government officials have repeatedly expressed an interest in cracking the case, yet, at the same time, they have often seemed reluctant to discuss the investigation. Some decisions concerning the investigation have generated controversy, especially a move on April 8 to designate the murder as an act of terrorism. That designation enabled the Ministry of National Security to take over the investigation.

Questions about the investigation’s scope also persist, according to Alevsat Aliyev, a member of the Public Investigation Group (PIG), a watchdog organization made up of former police officers, lawyers and media professionals. The six suspects who were arrested could only be used as witnesses, he said. At the same time, investigators have not yet questioned either police officers in the district where Huseinov’s murder occurred, or the editor’s friends and employees, he charged. "They have to question all these people. This is how an investigation should go," Aliyev said. "If they have no questions for them, it means one of two things: either they already know who killed [Huseinov] and [want to] keep it a secret, or they are not interested in the solution of the case."

The Security Ministry has issued no public statements since it assumed control of the case from the Office of the Prosecutor General and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Aliyev believes that having the two law-enforcement agencies collaborate on the case fostered a greater sense of transparency. "When state authorities feed international observers with promises and delay the real solution, such misguiding information raises concerns about the results," Aliyev said.

Rushana Huseinova, the murdered journalist’s widow, has concerns about the investigation as well. "I call the Ministry of National Security every day. They say that they have no information for me, because I am in contact with the media," Huseinova told EurasiaNet. The last information Huseinova received from officials, she said, was the news that the case was being transferred to the Ministry of National Security. "That is all? I do not care if my husband’s case is considered as an issue of national security. I just want it to be solved."

During an April 11 meeting with Miklos Haraszti, special representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on freedom of expression, President Aliyev vowed that investigators were working hard to solve the case. Aliyev also left OSCE representatives with the impression that he was personally overseeing the investigation. Similar reassurances were offered to Huseinov’s father, Sabir, who met with Aliyev at the presidential palace on April 12, the 40th day since the journalist’s murder, a traditional day of commemoration for the dead.

At an April 15 news conference, Haraszti expressed hope that resolution of the case would help rebuild the media’s trust in the government. "Elmar Huseinov was a brave journalist� and we look forward to having a result," Haraszti said.

Aliyev, along with various administration officials, also met with Robert Menard, the secretary-general of the Paris-based journalist rights organization Reporters Without Borders. At an April 8 press conference, Menard reported that Interior Minister Ramil Usubov had told him that the investigation had achieved "significant developments and certain results." He also downplayed opposition newspaper allegations that the government had had a hand in the murder.

Huseinov’s death has helped focus international attention on the issue of freedom of expression in Azerbaijan. In statements to reporters, Menard said that he considered freedom of expression in Azerbaijan to be in a worse state today than in 2003, when he last visited the country. International observers and local experts were cautiously optimistic that a planned non-governmental public television station might improve the country’s media climate. But initial optimism faded following the April 16 announcement that Ismail Omarov, a parliamentary deputy and former political program editor at state-owned AzTV, would serve as the new station’s general director. AzTV is widely seen as a pro-government mouthpiece with little tolerance for the opposition.

"Before this �appointment,’ we had a few hopes," said Fuad Mustafayev, deputy chairman of the opposition Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan. "Now we don’t have anything." Plans have since been announced by a group of opposition journalists, political parties and NGOs to launch a campaign for the establishment of "real public broadcasting in Azerbaijan," the Central Asian and Southern Caucasian Freedom of Expression Network reported on April 18.

On April 18, Andreas Gross and Andreas Herkel, co-rapporteurs of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), arrived in Baku to report on preparations for this November’s parliamentary elections, and met with Huseinov’s family in the Polish embassy. The Baku-based daily newspaper Echo has reported that PACE may appoint a special rapporteur for Huseinov’s case as it did when Giorgi Gongadze, an ethnic Georgian journalist, was killed in Ukraine in 2000.

Rushana Huseinova indicated that she might emulate the example of Gongadze’s wife, Miroslava, who took her husband’s murder case to the European Court of Human Rights when the Ukrainian investigation stalled. "I want the murderers of my husband to be punished," Huseinova said. "If my country’s law-enforcement agencies will not do that, I will call upon an international court."

Ali Hasanov, head of the presidential administration’s socio-political department, told journalists recently that the government would welcome international assistance for the Huseinov murder investigation, whether from rapporteurs or foreign investigators. The United States and Turkey earlier dispatched investigators to work on the case. But the US and Turkish specialists have left Azerbaijan without any making statements concerning the investigation. PIG is now pressing Turkish authorities to release, but, so far, the advocacy group has not received a response.

Meanwhile, journalists continue to mobilize around the case. Two new newspapers, founded by the staff of Monitor magazine, Bakinskiye Vedomosti (Baku News) and Realnii Azerbaijan (Real Azerbaijan), have gone into publication, and on April 9, scores of media professionals and activists staged a protest walk from Baku’s Academy of Science to the cemetery where Huseinov is buried. Police stood by in silence as the demonstrators marched � the result, organizers said, of a meeting between Aliyev and Reporters Without Borders’ Robert Menard the preceding day.

Editor�s Note: Shahin Abbasov and Khadija Ismailova are freelance journalists based in Baku.

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