Arrest of General Akperov with political overtones

On March 15, the General Prosecutor's Office of Azerbaijan announced the arrest of a retired army lieutenant general, National Hero of Azerbaijan, Rovshan Akperov. The reasons for the arrest will be announced later, the press service of the State Enterprise promised. This may mean that the arrest was made hastily and the accusation, however formal, has not yet been fully formulated. So far, the media have leaked information that Akperov is accused of premeditated murder.

Akperov is credited with one high-profile murder. This is a long story from 2001 in which the General was the prime suspect. On the night from May 31 to June 1, a high-profile murder took place in Kiev. Businessperson Elchin Aliyev was stabbed to death with a dagger in a Kiev cafe.

Mazair Shikhaliyev, the alleged witness, and Samaya Aliyeva, the mother of the killed, insisted after the murder that Rovshan Akperov was the killer. Rovshan Akperov denied his involvement in the murder.

Then this story was hushed up. Perhaps they took into account Akperov's merits in suppressing the riot police coups in 1994 and 1995 in Ganja and Baku, for which he was awarded the title of National Hero. However, it is unlikely that this story, which the whole country knew about for 20 years, could become the reason for the arrest of the general.

55-year-old Rovshan Akperov, commander of the 4th Baku Army Corps, participant in the first Karabakh war, commander of the 777th motorized rifle regiment, which played an important role in the defeat of the Armenian army near Tartar in the spring of 1994, was removed from participation in the 44-day war last year. Does not it seem strange? He was not among the generals present at the Victory Day parade on December 8 and among the list of awardees. On December 10, he admitted to the media that he was withdrawn from the army. "I have not been in the ranks of the Armed Forces for a long time and now I am busy with a completely different matter," he admitted to the journalist.

It should be noted that in the first days of the 44-day war, Najmeddin Sadigov, who was on friendly terms with Akperov, was dismissed from the post of chief of the general staff. Moreover, on December 12, Sadikhov's nephew, the head of the main department of internal security of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan, Major General Ramil Asgarov, was dismissed from his post.

According to the website Demokrat.az, in December 2020, Rovshan Akperov moved to Kiev, where he bought a number of commercial objects: the restaurants "Desant" and "Old Jorat" located in the Oboloni district on the banks of the Dnepr River in Kiev; an expensive apartment of 250 sq. m on the street Obolonskogo, 1B, Kiev, and a number of offices in the Dream Town shopping center.

It is strange that Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov signed the order to transfer Rovshan Akperov to the reserve on February 8, 2021. At the same time, Major General Khagani Jabrailov was also sent to the reserve. In 2015, both Generals exchanged positions - Akperov transferred command of the Shamkir corps to Jabrailov, and he himself replaced him as commander of the Baku corps.

All this may cause the development of the version about the political aspect of the arrest of the general.