Five Azerbaijani citizens arrested for espionage in favor of Iran

Baku/14.11.22/Turan: The defeat of the Iranian agents in Azerbaijan is gaining momentum. After a series of revelations of several Iranian terrorists, the State Security Service of Azerbaijan reported on November 14 that 5 citizens of the country were exposed for espionage in favor of Iran.

As stated in the press release of the State Security Service, one of them is the captain of the ship in the Caspian sea oil fleet Zahir Askerov. He was recruited while receiving religious education in the Iranian city of Qom, where he entered into secret cooperation with Iranian intelligence.

As the captain of the vessel, Askerov collected information about foreign companies and representative offices of foreign states in Azerbaijan; about the place and time of naval exercises in the Caspian Sea; about cargo delivered to oil platforms and transmitted this information via mobile communication and during meetings with his supervisors in Iran.

Besides him, according to the investigation, Azerbaijani citizen Elnur Rasulov, while in Iran in 2018, was recruited by the Iranian special services. Later, he also involved his relative, Arif Rasudov, in espionage.

Together they photographed the routes of oil and gas pipelines in the Garadagh region of Baku; unmanned aircraft   of the Ministry of Defense and State Border Service; locations of armored vehicles and military equipment; strategic and military facilities; anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as radar control systems in Baku, as well as in the Salyan and Fizuli regions.

The pictures were transmitted to the Iranian special services via the WhatsApp messenger.

Another one recruited by the Iranians was Bakhtiar Aghazade, who went to cooperate while receiving religious education in this country.

He collected and transmitted to the Iranians information about the representative offices of foreign states operating in Azerbaijan; about the socio-political situation, military units and their command staff.

It was also established that Azerbaijani citizen Mirhafiz Jafarzadeh, in keeping with the instructions of Orhan Mammadov hiding in Iran, collected and transmitted data on military facilities to Iranians via the Telegram messenger.

Zahir Askerov, Elnur Rasulov, Arif Rasulov, Mirhafiz Jafarzade and Bakhtiar Aghazade were brought to justice under Article 274 (high treason), all of them were arrested.

During the investigation, it was also found that acting on the orders of the Iranian special services and hiding in Iran Tohid Ibrahimbayli, Orhan Mammadov, Elshad Hajiyev, etc. created closed groups in the WhatsApp messenger, "Muzakirələr", "Elanlar", etc., and spread radical, religious-extremist ideas through them aimed at overthrowing the constitutional order in Azerbaijan in order to create a religious regime, the press release says. -06D-