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\n Buta Palace
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\n and a massive
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\n exposition center
\n <\/a>
\n . At least three of the multi-million-dollar projects were financed by the government.\n<\/p>\n
\n But most of the workers were treated as little more than modern slaves. Along with hundreds of others, Zoleti\u0107 lived in cramped conditions, with little food, working grueling, 12-hour days. His passport was confiscated. Some workers were beaten. One died in Zoleti\u0107\u2019s arms. And their promised wages were severely reduced or not paid at all.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\n Zoleti\u0107 was a candid and powerful witness to his fellow workers\u2019 plight, but this story is not based on his experience alone. Reporters interviewed eight Bosnian men who were trapped in Azerbaijan and reviewed hundreds of pages of court records, testimonies, reports, and other materials to corroborate and complete their accounts.
\n <\/b>\n<\/p>\n
\n Zoleti\u0107 had no idea who was behind SerbAz, the company that hired him. Now, an investigation by OCCRP reveals that there are strong reasons to suspect the firm was jointly owned by the wife and close associate of Azad Rahimov, Azerbaijan\u2019s Minister of Youth and Sports. Rahimov\u2019s ministry appointed SerbAz to fulfill some of the construction projects, worth 54 million manat (US$65.8 million).\n<\/p>\n
\n If true, the new evidence uncovered by OCCRP implicates the well-connected insider in one of the largest cases of labor exploitation ever to take place in modern Europe.It also raises questions about Azerbaijan\u2019s first family, which has maintained a tight grip on power since 2003. Rahimov is known to be a close associate of the country\u2019s president, Ilham Aliyev, and one of the private facilities where the workers labored, an upscale shopping mall, now belongs to the Aliyev family.\n<\/p>\n
\n Azad Rahimov, his wife Zulfiya, and her business partner did not respond to requests for comment for this story. The company that now owns the mall denied engaging SerbAz for the work and provided no further information, citing confidential commercial contracts.\n<\/p>\n
\n Zoleti\u0107\u2019s efforts to find justice in Azerbaijan have failed. A legal challenge to his treatment was repeatedly rejected by the country\u2019s pliant courts, and a prominent activist who took it up was driven out of the country. His last hope is the European Court of Human Rights, which is expected to rule on the workers\u2019 case this year.\n<\/p>\n
\n While many of the other workers are reluctant to talk about their days in Azerbaijan, Zoleti\u0107 said it was important for him to do so: \u201cIf more people know about it, it will be harder for it to happen again.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI never imagined that life could be so cruel, to inflict such injustice, such evil on people,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the 21st century.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Zoleti\u0107 had no idea who was behind SerbAz, the company that hired him. Now, an investigation by OCCRP reveals that there are strong reasons to suspect the firm was jointly owned by the wife and close associate of Azad Rahimov, Azerbaijan\u2019s Minister of Youth and Sports. Rahimov\u2019s ministry appointed SerbAz to fulfill some of the construction projects, worth 54 million manat (US$65.8 million).\n<\/p>\n \n If true, the new evidence uncovered by OCCRP implicates the well-connected insider in one of the largest cases of labor exploitation ever to take place in modern Europe.It also raises questions about Azerbaijan\u2019s first family, which has maintained a tight grip on power since 2003. Rahimov is known to be a close associate of the country\u2019s president, Ilham Aliyev, and one of the private facilities where the workers labored, an upscale shopping mall, now belongs to the Aliyev family.\n<\/p>\n \n Azad Rahimov, his wife Zulfiya, and her business partner did not respond to requests for comment for this story. The company that now owns the mall denied engaging SerbAz for the work and provided no further information, citing confidential commercial contracts.\n<\/p>\n \n Zoleti\u0107\u2019s efforts to find justice in Azerbaijan have failed. A legal challenge to his treatment was repeatedly rejected by the country\u2019s pliant courts, and a prominent activist who took it up was driven out of the country. His last hope is the European Court of Human Rights, which is expected to rule on the workers\u2019 case this year.\n<\/p>\n \n While many of the other workers are reluctant to talk about their days in Azerbaijan, Zoleti\u0107 said it was important for him to do so: \u201cIf more people know about it, it will be harder for it to happen again.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cI never imagined that life could be so cruel, to inflict such injustice, such evil on people,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the 21st century.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \n Zoleti\u0107 remembers his childhood in socialist Yugoslavia as happy and carefree. His father, a coal miner, earned a decent salary and the family lived well. Zoleti\u0107 remembered playing \u2018Cowboys and Indians\u2019 on a hill near his home, which was far enough from \u017divinice\u2019s center that neighbors kept farm animals on their properties. Even now, he is full of affection for his little corner of Bosnia.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cLife, it\u2019s beautiful,\u201d he said. \u201cI love my country. \u017divinice, too. [Even] in these hard times, I find it beautiful.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n But as he grew older, Zoleti\u0107 endured many disappointments.\n<\/p>\n \n The tall young man envisioned a professional basketball career, but suffered an injury as a teenager and had to quit. His dreams of being a soldier were initially dashed when the Yugoslav National Army did not admit him \u2014 because of his Muslim background, he believes. A few years later, when Yugoslavia disintegrated, he joined the army of the newly independent Bosnia and saw action on the front lines.\n<\/p>\n \n After being demobilized in 1997, Zoleti\u0107 was hired by a large shoe factory in the city of Tuzla, eventually growing to enjoy the repetitive work and earning a promotion to a supervisory position.\n<\/p>\n \n But by 2009, his factory, like many others in Bosnia, was in trouble. The workers, who were poorly paid, poured into the streets to demand government help. Zoleti\u0107 needed to find a better way to support his family.\n<\/p>\n \n That was when he first heard about SerbAz, a company that was hiring local men for high-paying construction jobs in Azerbaijan.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cI was interested,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t I be? \u2026 Especially after I saw who went, and returned, with cash.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Along with several other applicants, Zoleti\u0107 travelled to another city to meet with a SerbAz recruiter. He was offered a construction job, signing a brief \u201cstatement\u201d that listed the terms of his employment and warned about standards of conduct. He now realizes that this was not a legal contract \u2014 and that it should have been a warning of what was to come.\n<\/p>\n \n But at the time, the promised wages of five to eight dollars per hour were too appealing. \u201cI was optimistic, certainly,\u201d Zoleti\u0107 said. \u201cI believed in SerbAz.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n He waited for weeks to hear that it was his turn to go, calling company representatives over and over. Finally, two months after signing on, he was told to pack his things.\n<\/p>\n \n Along with 20 other men from \u017divinice, Zoleti\u0107 took a minibus to the Serbian capital, Belgrade, where they were joined by another group of Bosnian men. Many were younger and less experienced than him. Some were still teenagers.\n<\/p>\n \n But they shared Zoleti\u0107\u2019s optimism. In Bosnia, even those lucky enough to have work were unlikely to earn much more than $200 per month. If SerbAz\u2019s promises were true, they would earn that amount every few days in distant Baku.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cWe were heading into a brighter future,\u201d Zoleti\u0107 said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we believed.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \n Almost as soon as he landed in Azerbaijan, Zoleti\u0107 saw that his fate was no longer in his own hands.\n<\/p>\n \n After being led through immigration control and issued one-month tourist visas, Zoleti\u0107 said his group was met by two men he described as \u201cbosses.\u201d The new arrivals stood like \u201csoldiers in the army,\u201d he remembers. They were told to hand over their passports for safekeeping.\n<\/p>\n \n Zoleti\u0107 doubted that anyone would take better care of his passport than himself. But, realizing he had no other choice, he did as he was told.\n<\/p>\n \n \n \n \n \n The group was then herded onto a convoy of minibuses. Zoleti\u0107 sat and waited, worried about his missing passport and anxious to see where he would be taken. He was close to three others on the bus who had also come from \u017divinice. As some of the men were dropped off at different locations, he prayed that he and his friends would end up together.\n<\/p>\n \n At last, the minibus pulled up in front of a large house, surrounded by 4-meter-tall walls and a big gate. Zoleti\u0107 remembers his shock at seeing that around 100 men were already living inside. \u201cWe were looking at each other: \u2018What is this? Oh my God, where am I?\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cThere was no more room [for us],\u201d he said. \u201cNot for six, or even for two.\u201d His overseers improvised, placing beds for him and his friends in a hallway.\n<\/p>\n \n The group was told they would only be allowed to leave the crowded house with an exit pass and approval from their minders. \u201cCould we run away, climbing over the fence?\u201d Zoleti\u0107 remembered wondering. \u201cBut where would we go without our passports?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n He was not alone in his shock. All of the foreign workers except the most skilled were placed in similar group homes, five altogether. Each bedroom was fitted with bunk beds so tightly arranged that it was difficult to squeeze between them. It was typical for up to 24 men to share a single room. The house\u2019s corridors, a sauna, and even a swimming pool had been converted into sleeping quarters to accommodate still more workers.\n<\/p>\n \n On his first day, Zoleti\u0107 recalled being consoled by more experienced hands, who encouraged him to think positively. But the mood changed again that evening, when the bosses visited the house. They informed the workers that their salaries would be \u201ckept\u201d for them as a precaution against loose spending in a foreign city. They should not expect payment until they went home.\n<\/p>\n \n This was Zoleti\u0107\u2019s first introduction to the \u201cwhite helmets,\u201d as he and the other workers called their overseers. For the next several months these men \u2014 who were from his part of the world, not Azerbaijanis \u2014 would determine how he spent his every waking hour.\n<\/p>\n \n \n The 12-hour days were grueling. Every morning, Zoleti\u0107 and the others were awakened by a house supervisor shortly after 5:00 a.m. and taken to their respective construction sites. His task was to install drainage panels where the future exposition center would stand.\n<\/p>\n \n They were served meals at the site, but the food was meager, sometimes consisting only of discolored salami, plain eggs, and stale bread. \u201cOnly the tea was good,\u201d he said. \u201cYou could drink it with the bread.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n In interviews with reporters, multiple workers said they were always hungry during their time in Baku and had lost weight from the poor nutrition.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cMany looked like they had just come out of a concentration camp .\u2026 [They were] unrecognizable compared to when they just arrived,\u201d Zoleti\u0107 said.\n<\/p>\n \n To supplement the poor food on the site, the workers could buy more from a canteen operated by SerbAz at their compound, subtracting from their future wages. Zoleti\u0107 said the scheme was designed to prevent them from leaving \u2014 a \u201csemi-open prison,\u201d as he described it.\n<\/p>\n \n The men didn\u2019t return to the compound until 9:00 p.m. After the 12-hour workday, Zoleti\u0107\u2019s ankles swelled and ached from exhaustion. \u201cI used to freeze a half-liter water bottle in the morning before work. And [use it] to massage my feet after.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n In a building that housed dozens, there were only two showers and two toilets. Some workers waited hours to use the bathroom. \u201cBy time it\u2019s your turn to take a bath and wash your feet, it\u2019s already 10:30 or 11:00,\u201d Zoleti\u0107 said. He remembered sleeping just five or six hours a night.\n<\/p>\n \n Sometimes, he didn\u2019t get even that. On several occasions, he remembered being awakened by the house supervisor running through the corridors and banging on doors. The men stood in their underwear, shivering in the cold.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cIt was an alcohol test, imagine that,\u201d Zoleti\u0107 said. \u201cThey tell you to blow. You\u2019re all lined up, and they\u2019re checking you. It\u2019s unbelievable. In a delirium, you\u2019re trying to understand what\u2019s happening. Are you dreaming, or what? It\u2019s an ugly dream.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Those who tested positive were docked $500 from their largely imaginary salary. This technique of \u201cfining\u201d the workers to reduce their earnings and instill obedience was a constant threat, Zoleti\u0107 said.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cThe so-called supervisor would check how the beds were made,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they weren\u2019t made as he thought they should be, he would fine us.\u201d Even pausing to rest or taking too many toilet breaks on the construction site could result in a fine.\n<\/p>\n \n One day, Zoleti\u0107 remembered, the workers thought their work for the day was over and put down their tools. One of their overseers ran out and yelled at them to return to work for one more minute. The men hung their heads and returned to the job. \u201cBy the time we were back, that minute had passed, anyway. They were just flexing their muscles.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cThat hurt me a lot,\u201d Zoleti\u0107 said, remembering his humiliation. \u201cit was below any human level.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n On another hot summer day, a careless colleague on the work site dropped a metal pipe, hitting Zoleti\u0107 on the head. He bled profusely. The bosses brought a doctor who stitched up his wound, but he never got a proper diagnosis or a detailed exam. \u201cThey treated me like a little dog,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n \n His colleagues collected money to help him buy medicine. But he worried that without proper medical attention, he might get an infection, or worse.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cI thought of my family,\u201d he said. \u201cIf only I could fly into the sky and just get out of there. It was a battle for survival.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Just three days later, with the wound still fresh and stitches on his head, he was sent back to work.\n<\/p>\n \n \n The harsh conditions soon started to take a toll.\n<\/p>\n \n In August, one of the workers from \u017divinice, a man Zoleti\u0107 knew, died of a heart attack in his dormitory in another Azerbaijani town where SerbAz also had a construction project.\n<\/p>\n \n Then came a period in early October when there was not enough work to go around. Zoleti\u0107 and the others lingered in their compound with nothing to do \u2014 and nothing to eat. \u201cIt felt like a crisis,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was easy to see in the canteen, where there were fewer items. And they were not bringing any more.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n One afternoon, one of the workers fell gravely ill. The others brought him into the yard and tried to resuscitate him, but it was no use. The man died in Zoleti\u0107\u2019s arms.\n<\/p>\n \n He remembered having seen this man, a mechanical engineer, drinking coffee and smoking by himself in the garden. \u201cHe was there for a very short time,\u201d Zoleti\u0107 said. \u201cHe was down mentally, we were all taking it badly. Some less, some more. The man, unfortunately, couldn\u2019t bear it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cIt shook us all. In a situation that was crazy anyway, we were looking at a dead man. \u2026 We were out of our minds. What should we do? What now? And then the police came.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n The officers who came to investigate the death interrogated the workers but appeared to take no interest in their condition, their reasons for being in the country, or their lack of proper immigration documents. They remained trapped.\n<\/p>\n \n Just a few days later later, the gas supply, electricity, and water service was cut off. \u201cAnd then we had nothing,\u201d Zoleti\u0107 said.\n<\/p>\n \n In his despair, he noticed one positive thing: Though the workers were of different nationalities and had come from a region that had suffered a deadly war not long before, the past seemed not to matter. \u201cWe were like one,\u201d he said. \u201cLike brothers.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n The men started to open up to one another and Zoleti\u0107 heard from others about horrors he had not even known to fear. \u201cThey would beat people up in rooms where they turned on loud music,\u201d he said. \u201cSo that others wouldn\u2019t hear their moans.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \n The workers\u2019 desperation and growing hunger finally drew wider attention.\n<\/p>\n \n The first to take note of their plight was a man who sold them food and cigarettes from a small kiosk near one of the SerbAz construction sites. They had started to run out of money, he noticed, and were clearly hungry. For days, he had been allowing them to buy food and cigarettes on credit.\n<\/p>\n \n The vendor contacted a local non-profit organization that helped foreign workers, the Azerbaijan Migration Center, run by a former police officer named Alovsat Aliyev. One of Aliyev\u2019s employees dropped a multi-language informational booklet about the organization over the fence. Soon enough, one of the workers got in touch.\n<\/p>\n \n Aliyev arranged to meet him near the compound one evening. The worker had to leave in secret to avoid the guards, but his descriptions and photos of how he and his fellows were living were enough to spur the activist into action.\n<\/p>\n \n Aliyev\u2019s first step was to get in touch with the press. In a country known for its crackdowns on free media, he went to the Azeri service of Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty, an outlet funded by the U.S. government and one of the few that could do independent journalism in the country. (It has since been shut down.)\n<\/p>\n \n Together with RFE\/RL reporters, he rushed to the house. A video filmed by the journalists shows the moment Aliyev first encountered the imprisoned men. They are lean and hungry, crowding around their rescuers in desperation. Zoleti\u0107 is there too, standing in the back.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cI looked at their food,\u201d Aliyev said. \u201cThere was a 50-liter bucket with soup and something was swimming in it. I opened the fridge and there was nothing. No drinking water. There wasn\u2019t even water for them to take a shower.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cIt was terrifying,\u201d he said. He immediately sounded the alarm, organizing a press conference and getting in touch with the men\u2019s embassies and international organizations.\n<\/p>\n \n The authorities refused to intervene, so the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and several other institutions paid for Aliyev\u2019s organization to provide food and hygiene products for the stranded men.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cThat\u2019s when our liberation began,\u201d Zoleti\u0107 said. \u201cWe gave our statements. They came to see our living conditions, what we were doing, and they were appalled.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cWe got lunch boxes to survive, like during the war in Bosnia.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
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\n \u201cI Believed in SerbAz\u201d
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\n Reality Strikes
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\n Sa\u0161a Lipovac, one of the two men who met the group in the airport, was one of the most fearsome characters the workers encountered in Azerbaijan.
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\n Lipovac figured prominently in Zoleti\u0107\u2019s story as a punisher or enforcer who would resort to physical violence at the slightest infraction. Zoleti\u0107 and multiple other workers described him as \u201cevil\u201d and \u201csadistic.\u201d
\n <\/i>\n<\/p>\n
\n By the time the workers first encountered him in the Baku airport, Lipovac, a Bosnian Serb, was already wanted for crimes he had committed during the Bosnian war.
\n <\/i>\n<\/p>\n
\n He was later found guilty in a Bosnian court of murdering civilians, wounding two little girls, and committing multiple rapes, all in a single night. It was the \u201cmost horrific\u201d crime that took place near Banja Luka during the war, one lawyer in the case said. Lipovac received a 10-year prison sentence.
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\n \u2018In a Delirium\u2019
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\n Death in the Compound
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\n The Truth Comes Out
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