8 Officials Arrested for Bribery

The Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Azerbaijan, in conjunction with the State Service for Mobilization and Conscription, continues to implement comprehensive, systematic, and consistent measures aimed at preventing illegal actions by some officials of the Service and combating such detected offenses.

In this regard, based on information received from the Service and obtained as a result of operational-investigative measures carried out by the Main Department for Combating Corruption under the Prosecutor General, criminal cases have been initiated under the relevant articles of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan concerning the illegal actions of officials from the Service's Garadagh district department and its Saatli, Jabrayil, and Aghdash district branches.

Through investigative and operational-search measures, reasonable suspicions have been established that officials of these departments and branches received bribes in various amounts in connection with the performance of their official duties, for purposes such as exempting individuals from military training camps, granting deferment from military service, not imposing travel restrictions abroad, and other similar objectives.

Based on the collected evidence, Nurlan Abbasov, head of the Service's Aghdash district branch; Shahlar Usubaliyev, head of the conscription department of the same branch; Taleh Ismayilov, officer of the conscription department of the same branch; Murad Ahmadov, head of the Service's Saatli district branch; Araz Karimli, officer of the mobilization readiness and mobilization department of the same branch; Niyam Madatsoyly, deputy head of the Service's Jabrayil district branch – head of the mobilization readiness and mobilization department; and Etibar Aliyev and Shamil Aliyev, officers of the mobilization readiness and mobilization department of the Service's Garadagh district department, have been charged under Articles 311.3.1, 311.3.2, and 311.3.3 (repeated bribery by a group of persons in prior conspiracy, involving a large amount) of the Criminal Code, respectively. Based on the motions of the investigative body and the submissions of the prosecutor overseeing the preliminary investigation, decisions by the Baku Military Court have imposed pre-trial detention (main) and suspension from office (additional) as preventive measures against them.

Necessary investigative-operational measures are continuing in the criminal case, and other culpable individuals involved in committing illegal acts will also be brought to criminal responsibility.