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PP RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHLA RUEHMRE RUEHROV RUEHSR
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P 140937Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY BAKU
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0148
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUCNOSC/ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY COOPERATION IN EUROPE PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAKU 000574 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/07/2016 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM KDEM AJ
SUBJECT: AZERBAIJAN: UPDATE ON DETAINED FORMER MINISTER 
FARHAD ALIYEV 
 
REF: BAKU 328 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Reno L. Harnish III for Reasons 1.4 b and d. 
 
¶1. (C) Summary. Lawyers for jailed ex-Minister Farhad Aliyev 
report that his health continues to deteriorate due to 
inadequate GOAJ medical care; they also claim that the GOAJ 
has been criminally negligent in its medical treatment of 
Aliyev.  ICRC, which has regular access to Aliyev and the 
rest of the alleged coup-plotters, reports that Aliyev is 
receiving regular, substantial medical care, including access 
to prescription medication from Germany and regular visits by 
local cardiologists.  ICRC warns, however, that Aliyev's 
pre-existing heart condition makes him vulnerable to a sudden 
heart attack.  Separately, Aliyev's British lawyer Anthony 
Lester plans to appeal directly to President Aliyev to 
release Farhad Aliyev on medical grounds.  Should that fail, 
Lester plans to pursue an emergency injunction against 
Azerbaijan in the European Court of Human Rights and press 
for a condemnation of Azerbaijan at the June session of PACE. 
 Local lawyers report that the the GOAJ appears to be 
dropping the coup-plotting charges in favor of corruption 
charges.  We continue to urge the GOAJ to respect the rule of 
law in this and all other criminal cases. End Summary. 
 
ALIYEV'S LAWYERS: NEGLIGENT MEDICAL CARE VIOLATES HUMAN 
RIGHTS... 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶2. (C) Farhad Aliyev's British lawyer, Anthony Lester told 
the Ambassador April 6 that Aliyev's health, though not dire, 
has deteriorated in the past month. Lester - who has not had 
access to Aliyev in detention - reported poorly trained 
prison doctors who lack specific cardiology training have 
failed to provide Aliyev with adequate care in violation of 
Azerbaijan's obligations under European Convention on Human 
Rights. Lester argued that Aliyev's condition has gotten 
progressively as a result of the poor health care. Lester's 
assessment of Aliyev's health was seconded by human rights 
monitor Elchin Behbutov who recently visited the MNS 
detention facility and reported that Aliyev appeared 
physically run-down in contrast to previous visits. In a 
separate April 9 meeting with Poloff, Irada Javadova, one of 
Aliyev's local lawyers, described Aliyev's fluctuating health 
as a crime of medical negligence and a human rights 
violation.  Javadova further contended that the authorities 
were administering unknown drugs to Aliyev, and intentionally 
mistreating her client only to administer numerous injections 
to stave of death. (Lester did not make this claim.) 
 
 
ICRC: LAWYERS INTENTIONALLY MISTATING GOAJ MEDICAL TREATMENT 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
 
¶3. (C) ICRC chief of mission Mary Werntz (protect) and senior 
protection officer Jean Paul Corboz (protect) told Poloff 
April 12 that they believe Aliyev's lawyers were overstating 
claims of GOAJ medical negligence as part of their legal 
advocacy strategy. Based their regular access to Aliyev, it 
was clear to the ICRC that the authorities were allowing him 
medical privileges not granted to ordinary prisoners. ICRC 
reported that contrary to the lawyers' claims, Aliyev was 
receiving his prescribed heart and blood pressure medication 
imported from Germany, which were administered daily. A 
cardiologist from the nearby Central Clinical hospital 
(regarded as one of the better facilities in Baku) was 
performing electrocardiograms on a regular basis to monitor 
his heart; he also maintains an extensive medical file on 
Aliyev's condition to which the ICRC has had access. 
Nonetheless, Werntz stated that the quality of care Aliyev 
was receiving was ceraintly lower than what he would have 
received privately in Germany, because healthcare in 
Azerbaijan is generally poor and unprofessional, not because 
the doctors were attempting to harm Aliyev in jail. Werntz 
noted that medical experts with whom the ICRC has spoken 
agree that Aliyev has a heart condition (predating his 
detention) and is a prime candidate for a heart attack given 
the high stress of his circumstances. 
 
¶4. (C) Privately, Werntz added, the case was placing the ICRC 
in the awkward position of seeming to defend the rights of 
one person who was receiving better medical treatment that 
the overwhelming majority of Azerbaijani citizens in 
detention. The human rights violation, Werntz opined, was in 
the legality of the charges against Aliyev and the other 
detainees and the absence of due process, not in the 
treatment administered by the GOAJ in detention. Wertnz added 
that the GOAJ could quickly face a political catastrophe 
should Aliyev die of a heart attack in detention. Werntz 
 
BAKU 00000574  002 OF 002 
 
 
indicated the ICRC would seek a medical accounting from the 
GOAJ of the care granted to all detainees and would continue 
to regularly visit the group conveying any objections or 
concerns directly to the GOAJ. 
 
LESTER'S STRATEGY 
----------------- 
 
¶5. (C) Lester, who is also now representing Aliyev's brother 
former AzPetrol chairman Rafiq Aliyev, plans a two-pronged 
legal strategy. First, he plans to seek a settlement through 
face-to-face talks with President Aliyev during his next 
visit to Baku in early June. Lester told us he hopes to 
convince Aliyev that Farhad, President Aliyev's childhood 
friend and near brother, was fully loyal to the President, 
that the evidence of a coup plot was fabricated, and that 
Aliyev's failing health justified his early release. Lester 
said that it is in Ilham Aliyev's political interest to 
resolve this case to avoid further damage to Azerbaijan's 
international reputation. 
 
¶6. (C) The GOAJ, Lester argued does not have a case against 
Farhad Aliyev and even less of a case against his brother 
Rafiq. It is now grasping at straws to find evidence on which 
to prosecute them. Lester added that Aliyev's local lawyers 
believed the GOAJ was shifting its prosecution strategy away 
from the coup charges toward a focus on corruption, charges 
on which almost any GOAJ official could be prosecuted. 
Javadova told Poloff that in her meetings with GOAJ's 
prosecutors, it was evident that the Government had uncovered 
no evidence of a coup plot. Instead, Javadova reported, 
prosecutors regularly cited "signed" statements of Aliyev's 
former business associates alleging corruption and 
misconduct. Javadova reported that the Prosecutor General was 
no longer conducting a criminal investigation but rather was 
stalling for time by raising low-level claims against her 
client that Aliyev's attorneys were forced pursue. (Recent 
GOAJ interest in developing a plea bargain system has raised 
speculation in Baku's legal community that the GOAJ plans to 
use plea bargains to develop a case against Aliyev.) 
 
BRITISH LAWYER: WE'LL MAKE IT UGLY IF NEEDED 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (C) Lester told us that should the GOAJ refuse to settle 
the case in June, he will immediately take the case public in 
an effort to force an agreement. Lester will first petition 
the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on an emergency 
basis to seek an injunction against the GOAJ for failing to 
fulfill Azerbaijan's ECHR obligation to protect human life. 
Second, Lester will take Aliyev's case to the Parliamentary 
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), through members of 
parliaments with whom he has been in contact. At the PACE 
June session, Lester plans for the MPs to raise the Aliyev 
detention as evidence of Azerbaijan's poor human rights 
record. (In an April 10 message to the Ambassador, Lester 
told us that he plans to write members of Congress to urge 
them to raise the case with President Aliyev during his 
upcoming visit to Washington.) Separately, Lester noted that 
the Dutch office of attorneys Clifford Chance were going 
forward with arbitration proceedings in a London court of 
arbitration and at the World Bank concerning the corporate 
assets seized at the time of the Aliyev brothers' arrest. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶8. (C) We trust ICRC's evaluation of Aliyev's medical 
condition and the care that he is receiving while in GOAJ 
detention.  We will continue to urge the GOAJ to ensure 
appropriate medical treatment for all detainees, including 
Aliyev, and will continue to carefully monitor reports on his 
health.  We also will continue to urge the GOAJ to respect 
the rule of law, i.e. move to an early trial conducted on a 
fair basis. 
HARNISH