"Did Iran's Security Services Have a Contract on the Academician? Members of a Clandestine Terrorist Organization on Trial"
Obshchaya Gazeta
March 8, 2001

The trial of a group involved in the assassination of Academician Ziya Bunyatov, a famous scholar and public figure, has come to an end in Baku. High level government officials and the leadership of the Ministry of Defense were accused of the academician's murder. A group of young people from the Azerbaijani branch of the Vilayati al-Fatih Hezbollah international terrorist group ultimately came to the authorities' attention.

The founder and coordinator of the group was Tariel Ramazanov. Members of the organization were selected mainly from the ranks of religious fanatics with whom Ramazanov had become acquainted during worship at a mosque.

As is clear from the material of the criminal proceedings, almost all the members of the group had undergone training at a special camp not far from Tehran There they acquired the skills of sabotage work: the use of explosives, tracking, work with coded texts, and external surveillance. Then they were illegally conveyed on forged passports back to Baku. Secret addresses and a whole arsenal of weapons were discovered in the course of the investigation. A video with the testimony of Nizami Nagiyev, former Baku Customs inspector, was shown during the trial. He described how at a secret address Tariel Ramazanov and one Nasrullah, a citizen of Iran, sentenced the academician to death. The religious leadership, it was said, was accusing the academician of having close connections with Zionist circles and Israeli foreign intelligence.

The 72-year-old academician was returning home following a parliamentary sitting. In the stairwell between the first and second floors Nizami Nagiyev, who jumped him from behind, stabbed him five times. He later tried to cast blame away from himself and say that he had not wanted to kill Ziya Bunyatov but instead merely to wound him slightly so that the person would keep his life and so that he would have carried out the organization's assignment. The three coups de grace to the head were delivered by his partner in crime Halib Babayev, who worked in the Azerbaijan MVD 7th Directorate. Some time later, during the latest attempt to cross the Azerbaijani-Iranian border illegally, Halib was shot dead by border guards.

Two principal participants in the terrorist group (Nizami Nagiyev and Mahir Zeynalov) were sentenced to life imprisonment, the rest were given five years and longer terms of imprisonment.

This was not the first set of legal proceedings in Baku in which the law enforcement authorities of the republic obtained telling proof of the vigorous activity on the territory of Azerbaijan of Iran's security services. According to eyewitness testimony, special camps, where so called Islamic battalions, from citizens of Azerbaijani nationality included, are trained, operate close to Tehran. The detachments are allegedly intended for waging war to liberate the territories occupied by Armenia. Mahir Javadov insists on this version, in any event. The former prosecutor, brother of Rovshan Javadov, former commander of the Baku special police, fled abroad after the unsuccessful coup attempt of March 1995. Some time ago he showed up in Iran and, judging by his own statements, is putting together forces from the ranks of former men of the special police. True, knowing his pathological hatred of Heydar Aliyev, it may be confidently assumed that Mahir more likely intends to use his detachments (if they exist) for waging civil war in the republic. The Office of the Prosecutor General of Azerbaijan has for several years now been unsuccessfully seeking Javadov's extradition. Tehran is maintaining a dogged silence: people like Mahir Javadov and Tariel Ramazanov could come in handy as a means of pressure on Baku.

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