The trial against few former high-ranking officials of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and High Technologies reached its conclusion on July 27, Azernews reports.
The Baku Grave Crimes Court condemned former chief of staff of Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Communications and High Technologies, Vidadi Zeynalov, and former director general of Baku Telephone Communications, Beytulla Huseynov, to 13 years of prison, former chief of the Optical Devices department, Namazali Mammadov, to 11 years, former director of the Rabita Temir Tikinti #3 and Rabita Mulki Tikinti companies, Emin Mammadov, two companies, namely, to 10 years and finally former chief accountant of the Baku Telephone Communications, Anar Mustafayev, has been sentenced to 5 years in prison.
Arrested in November 2015, Huseynov, Valiyev, Mammadov and Mustafayev were charged under articles 179.3.2 (embezzlement on a large scale), 308.2 (abuse of power) and 313 (forgery) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan, whereas Zeynalov, and Jafarov, the director general of Azerpocht LLC Gambar Beybalayev were arrested under charges of articles 179.3.2 and 308.2.
The accused were arrested for money-laundering and manipulation of the public procurement process for personal profit. Vidadi Zeynalov was believed to have participated in the sale of government contracts for the construction of new telephone lines and the installation of other equipment to a private company, Baku Communications Repair & Construction LLC and Repair & Supply Service LLC, according to Obiektyv TV.
Zeynalov was accused of having cooperated with Beytualla Huseynov, former director general of the Baku Telephone Communications Production Association, who would have pocketed 35-45% of the total value of each project. According to the investigation, Huseynov misappropriated 21,379,000 manat out of 71,263 million manats and transferred the money to accounts that controlled by him.
Between 2009 and 2015, their activities are believed to have cost the state approximately 163 million AZN (88 million euro), Obiektyv TV reports.
According to the investigation, Bayram Valiyev, the director of “Baku Communications Repair & Construction LLC” and “Repair & Supply Service LLC” companies, Emin Mammadov, the director of “Repair & Construction No.3 LLC” and “Civil Communication Construction LLC, Anar Mustafayev, the chief accountant of the Baku Telephone Communications Production Association and Jalil Jafarov the director general of AzInTelekom LLC were also involved in the corruption scheme.
