Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 2
By Samir Ali - Trend:
The Baku Grave Crimes Court continued the trial proceedings on the criminal case of the former head of the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) Jahangir Hajiyev, his relative Ismayil Hidayetzade, ex-MP Dunyamin Khalilov and other persons accused of embezzlement, Trend reports.
At the trial, chaired by Judge Faig Ganiyev, the defendants Hajiyev and Khalilov were given the final say.
Afterwards, the process was postponed indefinitely as the court recessed for a private meetingş
The state prosecutor demanded 17 years of imprisonment for Jahangir Hajiyev, including the previous sentence, and 15 years and 9 months for former MP Dunyamin Khalilov, also including the previous term.
The prosecutor demanded six years of imprisonment for Ismayil Hidayetzade, and conditional punishment in relation to other defendants who had bank accounts opened under their name, from which millions of manats were subsequently withdrawn - Jamal Hasanov, Sarkhan Rasulov, Natig Imanov, Samir Hajiyev, Tabriz Abdulhamidov, Mahir Gafarov, Sadikh Murtuzayev, Tarlan Maharramov, Fakhraddin Heybatov, Ramin Ahmadov, Fariz Muradov, Salahaddin Gadirov, Erkhan Javad, Arif Ramazanov, Navai Shirinov, Svetlana Asadullayeva, Arif Madatov, Adil Mikailov and Ramiz Karimov.
According to official information, during investigations there were reasonable suspicions that contracts for the purchase and sale of promissory notes in the amount of $3.4 billion and 987 million euros were concluded with some legal entities in various countries and illegal transactions were carried out by using promissory notes in 2001-2015 upon Jahangir Hajiyev’s instructions, who was the chairman of the Board of the International Bank of Azerbaijan.
Moreover, there were reasonable suspicions that Khalilov, as well as other people, misappropriated 4.7 billion manats. Moreover, Hajiyev declined to pay taxes to the budget in the amount of 1,752,000 manats from the profit of Aztorg LLC, jointly led by Hajiyev and Khalilov in 2011-2014.
The Baku Grave Crimes Court previously sentenced Hajiyev to 15 years in prison, Dunyamin Khalilov to 13 years, and Ismayil Hidayetzade to 7 years in prison.
Khalilov’s sentence was reduced from 13 to 12 years and 9 months by a decision of the Baku Court of Appeals; Hidayatzade’s sentence was reduced to five years by the Supreme Court.