BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 21. A preliminary
hearing was held today at the Baku Court for Serious Crimes in the
criminal case against former Head of the Presidential
Administration Ramiz Mehdiyev and his assistant Eldar Amirov,
Trend‘s correspondent
reports from the court.
During the court session, presided over by Judge Murad Aslanov,
the defendants’ personal information was verified, and their
procedural rights and obligations under the law were explained.
The court established the necessary conditions for the
defendants to exercise their right to defense and other procedural
guarantees.
Meanwhile, the criminal case against Ramiz Mehdiyev was
initiated by the State Security Service in October 2025.
According to information released by the State Security Service,
as a result of comprehensive measures to prevent sabotage and
subversive activities by foreign intelligence services against the
security, national interests, and welfare of Azerbaijan,
Azerbaijani citizens Ramiz Mehdiyev, Abbas Abbasov, and Ali Karimli
were detained.
According to the indictment, Abbas Abbasov and Rustam
Ibrahimbeyov, co-founders and leaders of an organization called the
“Union of Billionaires, which was created by the intelligence
services of a foreign state to interfere in political processes in
Azerbaijan and was registered in that foreign state on July 4,
2012, under the name “Union of Russian-Azerbaijani Organizations,”
as well as Ramiz Mehdiyev, the chairman of the Azerbaijan Popular
Front Party (APFP), Ali Karimli, and party members Fuad Gahramanli,
Ganimat Zayidov, and others, conspired to violently seize state
power and forcibly alter the existing constitutional structure of
the state.
Thus, after they established an organization called the
“National Council of Democratic Forces” (“National Council”), which
in 2013 nominated Rustam Ibragimbeyov, a foreign national, as a
candidate in the presidential election of the Republic of
Azerbaijan, they, with financial assistance and other
organizational support from the special services of foreign states,
transferred funds totaling 933,828 manat ($549,294), including
funds received from Ramiz Mehdiyev and Abbas Abbasov, toward the
commission of mass riots to violently seize state power, disobeying
the lawful demands of government officials, disrupting public
order, and interfering with the operation of transportation,
enterprises, institutions, and organizations, as well as toward
recruiting people from various regions of the republic for this
purpose.
According to the technical evidence attached to the criminal
case file, members of an organization called the “Union of
Billionaires” were instructed to send Azerbaijani citizens to
Azerbaijan during the 2013 presidential elections, who were working
under their leadership or were otherwise under their protection in
a foreign country, to involve their relatives and close friends in
Azerbaijan in this scheme, and to ensure their participation in
rallies and mass disturbances in accordance with the instructions
of foreign intelligence services.
Reportedly, through these actions, Ramiz Mehdiyev committed acts
aimed at seizing state power with the assistance of foreign
intelligence services and forcibly altering the constitutional
structure, as well as high treason, by aiding representatives of a
foreign state contrary to the interests of the national security of
the Republic of Azerbaijan.
In addition, Ramiz Mehdiyev laundered more than 17,000,000 manat
($9,999,706) obtained through criminal means prior to October 13,
2025.
In connection with the aforementioned actions, Ramiz Mehdiyev
has been charged under Articles 193-1.3.2 (laundering of
substantial assets obtained through criminal means), 274 (treason),
and 278.1 of the Criminal Code.
