An Azerbaijani opponent murdered at his home in Alsace

The Mulhouse market, January 9, 2024. SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP An influential opponent of the Azerbaijani regime died on Tuesday, October 1, in Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin), after receiving around twenty stab wounds on Sunday. Vidadi Isgandarli, a 62-year-old former prosecutor who has been a political refugee in France since 2017, was allegedly attacked by three men at his home in the early morning, according to the first elements of the murder investigation opened by the Mulhouse judicial police. According to his brother Oqtaï, the cries uttered by Mr. Isgandarli alerted the neighborhood and caused the attackers to flee. Still conscious, he managed to call his brother, who, in turn, alerted the police. He was only able to give very few details before losing consciousness, having lost a lot of blood. At the Mulhouse judicial court, a source from the prosecution explains to Le Monde that the attack “took place between 5 a.m. and 6:30 a.m..” The neighborhood investigation did not find any witnesses and the videos from surveillance cameras have yet to be used.” As for the motive, it is “a priori political, but it is one avenue among others”. Contacted about the murder, the Azerbaijani embassy in France did not respond. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Azerbaijan: a French artist sentenced to three years in prison for graffiti in the Baku metro Add to your selections Relatives of the victim and Azerbaijani opponents who have taken refuge in France see behind this murder the hand of the authoritarian regime of Baku. “Vidadi Isgandarli, like me, was the subject of threats,” explains Azerbaijani journalist Ganimat Zahid, 61, from Strasbourg. “I have known him since the end of the 1990s and we have remained very close. He was a prosecutor until the early 2000s, after which he resigned to become involved in the defense of human rights. » Arrested in 2011 while demonstrating against Ilham Aliev’s regime, Vidadi Isgandarli was sentenced to three years in prison by an Azerbaijani court. He benefited from a presidential amnesty in the middle of his sentence and continued his political activity, before emigrating to France with his family. Fourth assassination of exiles Having become a blogger in France, he feeds his YouTube channel (47,500 subscribers) with vindictive messages against the Azerbaijani head of state and his entourage. “I do not exclude that Vidadi was targeted because of the insults he uttered,” notes Ganimat Zahid, who adds: “Which in no way justifies his murder. Either way, we are all on the list of opponents to be killed. » According to the journalist, Vidadi Isgandarli is the fourth Azerbaijani opponent assassinated in exile by the regime in four years. In 2021, Baïram Mammedov, Vüqar Rza and Hüseyn Bakikhanov were killed, respectively in Türkiye, Belgium and Georgia. You have 38.3% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.



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