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Azerbaijan investigates officer's disappearance
BAKU (AFP)
Jul 09, 2004
Azerbaijan's defence ministry said on Friday it was looking into the
whereabouts of one of its senior officers, who was reported to have
applied for political asylum while studying on a NATO course in
Belgium. Unconfirmed reports in the local media say that Lieutenant
Colonel Firuz Gassymov went absent without leave from his course in
Brussels and approached an unnamed foreign embassy to ask for asylum.
Defence ministry spokesman Ramiz Melikov declined to confirm the
reports but said: "Things are unclear at the moment. We are conducting
an investigation."
If the reports are confirmed, it will be a serious embarassment for
Azerbaijan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic which prides itself on
the strength of its armed forces. But it is not the first time that
the military has created awkward moments for the country's leaders.
Last year, almost the entire student faculty at Azerbaijan's most
prestigious military academy went absent without leave in protest at
their living conditions. And earlier this year, an Azeri officer on a
NATO course in Hungary was charged with murder after an Armenian
officer studying alongside him was hacked to death with an axe as he
slept. The Azeri officer is now in jail in Budapest awaiting trial.
Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war in the early 1990s over the
territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, a dispute which is still unresolved.
_Agence France-Presse_ (http://www.afp.com/) .
BAKU (AFP)
Jul 09, 2004
Azerbaijan's defence ministry said on Friday it was looking into the
whereabouts of one of its senior officers, who was reported to have
applied for political asylum while studying on a NATO course in
Belgium. Unconfirmed reports in the local media say that Lieutenant
Colonel Firuz Gassymov went absent without leave from his course in
Brussels and approached an unnamed foreign embassy to ask for asylum.
Defence ministry spokesman Ramiz Melikov declined to confirm the
reports but said: "Things are unclear at the moment. We are conducting
an investigation."
If the reports are confirmed, it will be a serious embarassment for
Azerbaijan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic which prides itself on
the strength of its armed forces. But it is not the first time that
the military has created awkward moments for the country's leaders.
Last year, almost the entire student faculty at Azerbaijan's most
prestigious military academy went absent without leave in protest at
their living conditions. And earlier this year, an Azeri officer on a
NATO course in Hungary was charged with murder after an Armenian
officer studying alongside him was hacked to death with an axe as he
slept. The Azeri officer is now in jail in Budapest awaiting trial.
Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war in the early 1990s over the
territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, a dispute which is still unresolved.
_Agence France-Presse_ (http://www.afp.com/) .