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12 SLAIN IN SHOOTING AT AZERBAIJAN OIL ACADEMY
Aida Sultanova
AP foreign
Thursday April 30 2009
A young man armed with an automatic pistol and clips of ammunition
rampaged through a prestigious institute in the Azerbaijani capital
Thursday, killing 12 people and wounding others before killing himself
as police closed in, the government said.
Little is known about the gunman and even less about the motive for
the bloodshed that shook the faculty and students of the Azerbaijan
State Oil Academy, a noted school whose graduates have included future
presidents and tycoons.
The suspect, Farda Gadyrov, entered the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy
in Baku and climbed five floors of the building, shooting everyone he
met along the way, according to a joint statement from the Interior
Ministry and state prosecutors.
Gadyrov, a Georgian citizen born in 1980, then shot and killed himself
with the gun, a Makarov pistol, when he saw police approaching,
the statement said. It said he had three magazines of ammunition.
The statement gave no motive for the attack in Azerbaijan, a country
at the crossroads of western Asia and Eastern Europe, with Russia,
Georgia, Armenia and Iran at its borders.
TV footage from inside the academy showed victims lying face down
in the corridors, apparently dead, with blood seeping onto the
floor. Students carried others, apparently injured, out of the
building, and weeping women hurried out.
"We were in an exam, we heard gunshots, we went out of the classroom
in panic and saw a gunman opening fire on everyone. Three of my
friends were shot," Bekir Belek, a Turkish student, told CNN-Turk
television from a Baku hospital. "Everywhere was covered in blood,
all the corridors."
"We were trying to escape but had to return when my friends were shot;
we took them to hospital," Belek said.
"There were bodies at each floor," said Ibrahim Kar, another Turkish
student at the hospital.
Ilgar Mamedov, whose father, an employee of the academy, said the
gunman walked the corridors of the academy taking aim at the head of
anyone standing within range, and shooting. If it was apparent a victim
was not dead after a first shot, the attacker shot again, Mamedov said.
Azeri President Ilham Aliev offered condolences in a statement later
Thursday, and said he would personally oversee the investigation.
The Azerbaijani television station ANS quoted an official in Dashtepe,
the Georgian village where Gadyrov grew up, as saying that Gadyrov
had left with his parents about a decade ago to live in Russia, then
returned briefly about a month ago before moving to Azerbaijan. "It
was said that someone had promised him work," said the official,
Vidadi Gasanov.
Gasanov described him as an unsociable child who mostly stayed in
his house and s aid "there was something strange in his character."
During his brief return to the village "he went outside only to make
purchases at the stores," Gasanov said.
The academy, which has existed under a variety of names since the
beginning of the 20th century in this oil-rich former Soviet republic,
has long been recognized as a major international center for the
training of oil industry specialists.
Among its graduates were Vagit Alekperov, the president of Lukoil,
Russia's biggest independent oil producer; Angola's President Jose
Eduardo dos Santos; Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan's first post-Soviet
president; and Lavrenti Beria, the head of the Soviet secret police
under Josef Stalin.
---
Associated Press Writer Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this
report.
Aida Sultanova
AP foreign
Thursday April 30 2009
A young man armed with an automatic pistol and clips of ammunition
rampaged through a prestigious institute in the Azerbaijani capital
Thursday, killing 12 people and wounding others before killing himself
as police closed in, the government said.
Little is known about the gunman and even less about the motive for
the bloodshed that shook the faculty and students of the Azerbaijan
State Oil Academy, a noted school whose graduates have included future
presidents and tycoons.
The suspect, Farda Gadyrov, entered the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy
in Baku and climbed five floors of the building, shooting everyone he
met along the way, according to a joint statement from the Interior
Ministry and state prosecutors.
Gadyrov, a Georgian citizen born in 1980, then shot and killed himself
with the gun, a Makarov pistol, when he saw police approaching,
the statement said. It said he had three magazines of ammunition.
The statement gave no motive for the attack in Azerbaijan, a country
at the crossroads of western Asia and Eastern Europe, with Russia,
Georgia, Armenia and Iran at its borders.
TV footage from inside the academy showed victims lying face down
in the corridors, apparently dead, with blood seeping onto the
floor. Students carried others, apparently injured, out of the
building, and weeping women hurried out.
"We were in an exam, we heard gunshots, we went out of the classroom
in panic and saw a gunman opening fire on everyone. Three of my
friends were shot," Bekir Belek, a Turkish student, told CNN-Turk
television from a Baku hospital. "Everywhere was covered in blood,
all the corridors."
"We were trying to escape but had to return when my friends were shot;
we took them to hospital," Belek said.
"There were bodies at each floor," said Ibrahim Kar, another Turkish
student at the hospital.
Ilgar Mamedov, whose father, an employee of the academy, said the
gunman walked the corridors of the academy taking aim at the head of
anyone standing within range, and shooting. If it was apparent a victim
was not dead after a first shot, the attacker shot again, Mamedov said.
Azeri President Ilham Aliev offered condolences in a statement later
Thursday, and said he would personally oversee the investigation.
The Azerbaijani television station ANS quoted an official in Dashtepe,
the Georgian village where Gadyrov grew up, as saying that Gadyrov
had left with his parents about a decade ago to live in Russia, then
returned briefly about a month ago before moving to Azerbaijan. "It
was said that someone had promised him work," said the official,
Vidadi Gasanov.
Gasanov described him as an unsociable child who mostly stayed in
his house and s aid "there was something strange in his character."
During his brief return to the village "he went outside only to make
purchases at the stores," Gasanov said.
The academy, which has existed under a variety of names since the
beginning of the 20th century in this oil-rich former Soviet republic,
has long been recognized as a major international center for the
training of oil industry specialists.
Among its graduates were Vagit Alekperov, the president of Lukoil,
Russia's biggest independent oil producer; Angola's President Jose
Eduardo dos Santos; Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan's first post-Soviet
president; and Lavrenti Beria, the head of the Soviet secret police
under Josef Stalin.
---
Associated Press Writer Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this
report.