VZCZCXRO3707
PP RUEHDBU RUEHLN RUEHSK RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHKB #0065/01 0330729
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 020729Z FEB 10
FM AMEMBASSY BAKU
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2323
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC PRIORITY
RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 BAKU 000065 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR INL - JCAMPBELL 
DEPT FOR EUR/ACE - SCOULTER - AND EUR/CARC 
DOJ FOR OPDAT - CALEXANDRE/FEHRENSTAMMCNEWCOMBE - AND NAC - 
KCASSIBRY 
 
E.O. 12958: NA 
TAGS: EFIN SNAR KJUS OTRA KCRM KCOR AJ
SUBJECT: AZERBAIJAN: THREE AZERBAIJANI PROSECUTORS TRAINED AT USDOJ 
NATIONAL ADVOCACY CENTER SHINE IN THE SPOTLIGHT OF HIGH-PROFILE 
AZERI CRIMINAL PROCESS 
 
REF: BAKU 476 (2009) 
 
 
¶1.  SUMMARY:  In April 2009, three Azeri prosecutors went with the 
DOJ OPDAT Resident Legal Advisor on an INL funded study-tour to the 
DOJ National Advocacy Center (NAC) Columbia, South Carolina. Under 
the RLA's supervision, they took an intensive two-week trial 
advocacy course. Each of these three has since put his training to 
good use, not only in the Azeri courtroom but also in advancing a 
western approach to the practice of criminal law in Azerbaijan, 
including the execution of a USG request for documents in an ongoing 
federal corruption/fraud investigation. One of the three is now a 
candidate judge; the second just successfully finished handling the 
first-ever money laundering trial in Azerbaijan; and the third 
handled the politically sensitive, outcome preordained, and 
internationally condemned bloggers case, yet did so with a high 
degree of professional courtesy and  responsibility. To further 
advance both their and their colleagues' skills, knowledge, and 
thinking, the RLA continues, with INL funding, to hold an ongoing 
series of in-country programs on case development, trial advocacy, 
and professional responsibility. End Summary. 
 
 
Background; Prosecutors' Capabilities 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶2. As reported in reftel, the Prosecutor General of Azerbaijan 
personally requested the DOJ OPDAT Resident Legal Advisor to educate 
his prosecutors in the adversarial system, especially in how to 
handle complex prosecutions and how to ethically fulfill his/her 
professional responsibility obligations.  Azeri prosecutors do not 
have the experience or training to develop and prosecute complex 
criminal cases in the fields of corruption and financial crime. Few 
advocates are skilled in the finer complexities of developing the 
specific theory of a case in courtroom examination and argument. 
Further, Azeri prosecutors are just now learning how to comply with 
the mandate of their new ethics code to act towards the court and 
defendant fairly and responsibly, including the disclosure of 
exculpatory evidence. Accordingly, the DOJ RLA has, with INL 
funding, held an ongoing series of in-country programs designed to 
advance the Azeris' knowledge, skills, and thinking in these subject 
areas. 
 
¶3. In April 2009, the RLA took three of the most promising and 
better English-speaking young Azeri prosecutors to the DOJ National 
Advocacy Center (NAC) in Columbia, South Carolina, for the two-week 
trial advocacy course designed for Assistant U.S. Attorneys. This 
course at the NAC teaches a prosecutor to prepare witnesses for 
trial, implement trial strategy, effectively question witnesses, 
argue cogently, think on one's feet, properly conduct one's self in 
a courtroom, and to do so ethically and responsibly. The three 
Azeris were well prepared for class every day, engaged in the 
coursework with enthusiasm, and performed superbly. 
 
¶4.  In the intervening months, these three prosecutors have put 
their training to good use and have lived up to, if not exceeded, 
expectations. Each of the three has exercised his new skills in the 
courtroom and passed some of the learned techniques on to their 
colleagues. But each also has his own particular accomplishment, 
which in turn has dovetailed with the various DOJ OPDAT programs in 
Azerbaijan. 
 
The First of the Three Prosecutors 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  Anar Rzayev was recently selected as a candidate judge. Until 
his selection, he worked in the International Relations Division of 
the Prosecutor General's Office. 
 
¶6.  As reported in reftel, the RLA and a trial attorney from DOJ's 
Office of International Affairs (OIA) held a mutual legal assistance 
seminar in February 2009. As a direct result of this seminar, Anar 
Rzayev's office is cooperating with OIA in an assistance request 
filed recently pursuant to the UN Convention Against Corruption. The 
DOJ Fraud Division is requesting documents in an ongoing federal 
investigation into an American oil supply company and its Azeri 
affiliate. Pursuant to the OIA request, Anar Rzayev's office just 
obtained and executed a search warrant on the office of the Azeri 
affiliate and is gathering requested documents from the Azeri 
Ministry of Taxation. These documents will then be certified and 
forwarded to DOJ. 
 
¶7. Four years ago, through the collaborative efforts of DOJ, ABA, 
COE, OSCE, and GTZ, the Azeri judicial selection process was 
transformed to become transparent and merit-based. With selection 
now depending upon top performance in oral and written exams, the 
failure rate of candidates is high. This new judicial selection 
process is designed to create a new cadre of professional, 
merit-based judges such as Anar Rzayev. Such judges will be 
Azerbaijan's only hope towards achieving a qualified and independent 
judiciary that is equipped to combat corruption, build respect for 
the rule of law, and support economic and political growth. Two 
groups of judges had previously gone through this new selection 
process. The first group consisted of 55 judges appointed in 2007; 
the second group, 102 judges appointed in 2008. 
 
¶8. Having just passed the selection process, a third group of 80 
candidate judges, including Anar Rzayev, is currently undergoing an 
eight-month training program prior to assuming the bench. Upon 
completion of four months of academic training, they will then 
undergo four months of on-the-job training. Thereafter, they will 
take a final written essay exam, consisting of writing a decision in 
both a criminal and civil case. Those candidates who pass (at this 
stage only one candidate, from the first group, has ever failed) 
will then be formally invested as judges. 
 
¶9.  In December 2009, the DOJ RLA held a week-long seminar for this 
new group of 80 judicial candidates. Two visiting U.S. federal 
judges and the RLA were the primary instructors. A hypothetical 
false-document sales and money laundering case provided the backdrop 
for moot court practical exercises as well as discussions on money 
laundering, plea bargaining, jury trials, decision making and 
writing, media freedom, the appellate process, and judicial ethics. 
 
¶10. As part of the seminar, Anar Rzayev related his experience of 
sitting as a juror (together with volunteer residents of Columbia, 
SC) in one of the all-day mock trials held at the end of the NAC 
course. His telling added an extra dimension to the jury trial 
discussions and left the other 79 candidate judges with a favorable 
impression of the U.S. jury system. Each expressed the desire one 
day to preside over a jury trial in Azerbaijan. Current law provides 
for jury trial in select serious-crimes cases, but to date has never 
been implemented. 
 
The Second of the Three Prosecutors 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶11. Azar Osmanov, who works in the accusations (trial) section of 
the Prosecutor General's main office, just finished handling the 
first-ever money laundering trial in Azerbaijan. On January 8th, the 
trial judge entered a verdict of guilty as to all counts, including 
the money laundering charge, and sentenced the defendant to eight 
years in prison. The case was referred to trial by the Prosecutor 
General's Anti-Corruption Task Force, and came about as the result 
of the RLA's cooperative work with the Task Force. 
 
¶12. In a series of on-site sessions, the RLA used actual U.S. 
organized crime case models to detail and explain for the Task Force 
investigators and prosecutors the six-step method to investigate and 
prosecute complicated cases: use of informants; technical 
surveillance; undercover operations; financial tracing and net worth 
analysis; plea bargaining, including immunity and witness 
protection; and the charging of racketeering and money laundering 
laws. Further, in July 2009, the RLA and an IRS CID Special Agent, 
who is the author of a world recognized text book on money 
laundering investigation, conducted a special course on how to 
identify and investigate money laundering activity. In particular, 
they taught the Task Force how to trace and freeze assets. 
 
¶13. The task force recently utilized the RLA's suggestion to combine 
an undercover sting with a net worth analysis. It successfully made 
and referred to trial a corruption case against the head of a local 
school district and two school principals for extorting large sums 
of money in exchange for passing grades from students. 
 
¶14. After the July course, the task force was inspired to actually 
refer a money laundering charge to trial.  With DOJ assistance, the 
Azerbaijani Parliament had passed an Anti-Money 
Laundering/Counter-Terrorist Financing law in February 2009, but no 
prosecutions had yet been brought under the law. So, when thereafter 
the task force completed its investigation of a case involving a 
$100,000 embezzlement by the chief accountant of a quasi 
government/private company, the director of the task force forwarded 
the case to trial with a money laundering charge included. The 
defendant had deposited $60,000 of the $100,000 of embezzled funds 
into various local accounts established by him under false names, 
and then transferred portions out of the country. A legal motion to 
dismiss the money laundering law was filed by defense counsel, but 
Azar Osmanov successfully parried the defense attacks on the law. 
This conviction now sets a solid legal precedent for future money 
laundering cases in Azerbaijan. 
 
The Third of the Three Prosecutors 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶15. Jeyhun Kazimov works in the trial section of the city of Baku 
Chief Prosecutor's office. He was the trial attorney in the recent 
hooliganism case of bloggers Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade. 
 
¶16. As previously reported, the two bloggers were involved in a 
scuffle at a restaurant during the summer. The issue at criminal 
trial was whether they were the aggressors or the victims. In a 
verdict that has garnered much international criticism, the two 
bloggers were convicted and sentenced to two years in jail on 
hooliganism charges. The European Parliament called for their 
immediate release in a resolution critical of what it called the 
deterioration of media freedom in Azerbaijan. International human 
rights organizations have called the charges against the two men 
politically motivated. Both men had been active in groups that are 
highly critical of the administration of President Ilham Aliyev, 
including a video circulated by internet in which an activist in a 
donkey costume conducted a mock press conference. The case is 
currently on appeal. 
 
¶17. At the NAC, Jeyhun Kazimov was the most polite, enthusiastic, 
and responsive of the three to all the RLA and other instructor's 
criticisms and suggestions for improvement. As confirmed with other 
international observers at the bloggers' trial, despite the hostile 
atmosphere of the trial setting, Jeyhun Kazimov performed with the 
same level of politeness and responsiveness. He presented his 
case-in-chief evidence, namely the restaurant and police witnesses, 
"as is," without trying to coach them into a smooth story that 
worked over the otherwise inconsistencies and weaknesses. Each party 
had its own story as to who started the fight, but nothing more to 
corroborate or discredit either version. Through defense cross 
examination, however, it was shown that the eye-witnesses identified 
by the police really did not see who started the fight. Jeyhun 
Kazimov conducted his direct and cross-examinations, and made his 
objections and arguments, with reason and without the usual 
histrionics attendant in these types of trials. Also, he acted with 
professionalism and dignity towards the judge and opposing counsel. 
 
¶18. The RLA recently met with Aziz Seyidov, the Chief Prosecutor for 
the city of Baku, to discuss the case. Chief Prosecutor Seyidov 
informed the RLA that as far as he was concerned, this was a low 
level assault case. The political and media implications were 
irrelevant to him in his decision in taking the case to trial. He 
said he simply could not account for the curious pattern of media 
critics being charged with instigating fights. Rather, he said he 
based his decision in this case solely on the police report, which 
directly blamed the bloggers for starting and continuing the fight. 
His office does not do the investigations in these types of cases; 
rather, that is done by the Ministry of Interior. If the MOIA report 
suggests a crime, then his office has no choice but to take the case 
as presented to trial. He has 24 trial attorneys who cover 11 
districts. They rarely have the time or luxury to interview the 
witnesses prior to the trial hearings, which are intermittent, an 
hour or two at a time spaced weeks apart. Chief Prosecutor Seyidov 
said he picked Jeyhun Kazimov to be the trial attorney because 
"Jeyhun is young, smart, articulate, and well-trained." 
 
¶19. All things being equal, this evidence most likely would not have 
amounted to the "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" standard required 
to sustain a criminal verdict in a U.S. courtroom. Although the 
outcome of the trial was most certainly pre-ordained, that was no 
reflection upon the prosecutor. Although international observers 
state that the prosecution witnesses were lying and the defense 
witnesses were telling the truth, that determination was for the 
judge, not the prosecutor, to make. Although a jury may have arrived 
at a different conclusion, the judge, for better or worse, chose to 
discount the defense witnesses. Regardless, Jeyhun Kazimov did his 
job by handling as professionally as he could the case that was 
presented to him by the Ministry of Interior. 
 
¶20. By handling the case as straightforward as he did, Jeyhun 
Kazimov acted in conformity with the recently implemented Azeri Code 
of Conduct for Prosecutors. Not only did he receive trial ethics 
training at the NAC, but he received similar training on the Azeri 
code from the RLA. As reported in reftel, the RLA and an attorney 
from DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility traveled to 
different prosecutors' offices around the country to familiarize 
regional Azeri prosecutors with their responsibilities under the 
Azeri code, illustrate the similarities with the U.S. code, provide 
examples of professional misconduct in the trial setting, and to 
advise on procedures for investigating and punishing such 
allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. 
 
¶21. Unfortunately, the judge in the bloggers case was an older judge 
who has not attended any of the OPDAT trainings held for the newer 
judges. Over the past two years in seminars held for the second 
group of 102 new judges, visiting U.S. federal judges have delivered 
the message that the freedom of the press should be sacrosanct. 
Rather than directly criticizing the political repression of the 
press in Azerbaijan, the U.S. federal judges instead have talked 
about how the U.S., as a young democracy and even later, made 
mistakes in this area. But the federal judges drove home the theme 
that slowly but surely an independent judiciary has to step in to 
assert that political dissent has to be protected in a democracy in 
order for the people to be able to assess the quality of their 
leadership. Even falsehoods in the context of political speech need 
protection, or else the party in power will decide what the "truth" 
is and repress what it doesn't like. 
 
¶22. The media was invited to and was present for the media freedom 
lecture given at the December 2009 seminar described in paragraph 
nine above. The senior visiting federal judge (Chief U.S. District 
Judge from New Orleans) further gave a press interview at the 
seminar room, where she reiterated these same themes of media 
freedom. Her lecture and interview received wide and favorable media 
coverage both in print and television/radio. 
 
¶23. Unfortunately, the likelihood of true judicial independence is 
still remote due to the institutional control of the executive 
branch over much of the judiciary, including budgeting and review of 
judges' work product, as well as the systemic problem of judicial 
corruption. However, the new judges appointed since 2007 appear 
idealistic. Salaries have improved, and as these younger, merit 
based and thus more committed and idealistic judges elevate to high 
judicial levels, hopefully these institutional vestiges of the 
Communist era will eventually disappear. 
 
¶24. Comment: The INL Letter of Agreement in par III mandates a 
yearly evaluation by the GOAJ regarding the DOJ OPDAT program. This 
end of the year review was just conducted by Fuad Alasgarov, the 
head of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration's Department for 
Work with Law-Enforcement Agencies. Fuad Alasgarov stated that the 
GOAJ feedback he has gotten, which he endorses, is "the RLA is doing 
a fantastic job and his program must continue."   The Embassy 
likewise firmly endorses this sentiment. As commented in reftel, the 
RLA continues to lead meaningful efforts to develop and implement 
justice sector institutional, criminal procedure, and 
anti-corruption reform initiatives. Accordingly, the Embassy 
strongly recommends the continuation of this highly active and 
useful INL-funded program. 
 
LU