Rustam Ibragimbekov: Statement by SOCAR - a lie

SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) has issued a statement accusing the screenwriter, Rustam Ibragimbekov, of causing damage to its business reputation. SOCAR considers the allegations by Ibragimbekov, that the company illegally seized his land to be unfounded.

The company attributed the actions carried out in recent years to measures "against illegal construction in the occupied territories, in the area of ??infrastructure of the oil industry." At the same time, land disputes and others with Ibragimbekov were resolved on the basis of court decisions and the interests of the State Oil Company were met on a legal basis.

SOCAR also rejects Ibragimbekov's statements that he intended to use the land under a big film project. According to SOCAR, the land was allocated by unlawful decisions of the municipalities for the construction of private homes in the name of his wife, Shohret Ibragimbekova and close relatives, Lala Efendiyeva, Erkin Efendiyev, Waheed Guliyev, Shukur Huseynov, Ulviyya Hasanova, Ulker Hasanova, Parvana Hasanova, Vagif Guliyev, Atamaly Hasanov, and Jamal Guliyev and close friends of Ibragimbekov - Naila Imanova and Faig Safarov.

According to SOCAR, the municipalities and the "buyers" themselves originally knew that the illegally allocated land is state property and belongs to the land for constant industrial use by SOCAR.

Commenting on the allegations for Turan, Rustam Ibragimbekov called them utter nonsense.

"On all these grounds, we have documents and bills of sale. These lands were once allocated to municipalities, who sold them to citizens. Therefore we bought the land, already privatized before us, from these people. We made the land property of individual citizens, because the Filmmakers Union could not buy the land from the people and in this regard there is a separate agreement between the Union and the Mayoralty.

On these lands we planned to construct a cinematic set and this project was also approved by the Mayoralty and the construction started. And what does SOCAR have? They do not have any documents, therefore, all their statements and declarations are a lie," said the screenwriter.

On the question of what he would do in this situation, Ibragimbekov noted that he would file lawsuits against the "bandit actions of SOCAR," which illegally seized the land belonging to the citizens.

"We shall turn to the European Court of Human Rights, because we do not believe in a fair court decision in Azerbaijan," said the playwright.

Note that the attacks and pressure on Rustam Ibragimbekov began after he made critical comments about the authorities. -0B2/06-