BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 21. A preliminary hearing was held today at the Baku Court for Serious Crimes in the criminal case against former Head of the Presidential Administration Ramiz Mehdiyev and his assistant Eldar Amirov, Trend's correspondent reports from the court.
During the court session, presided over by Judge Murad Aslanov, the defendants’ personal information was verified, and their procedural rights and obligations under the law were explained.
The court established the necessary conditions for the defendants to exercise their right to defense and other procedural guarantees.
Meanwhile, the criminal case against Ramiz Mehdiyev was initiated by the State Security Service in October 2025.
According to information released by the State Security Service, as a result of comprehensive measures to prevent sabotage and subversive activities by foreign intelligence services against the security, national interests, and welfare of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani citizens Ramiz Mehdiyev, Abbas Abbasov, and Ali Karimli were detained.
According to the indictment, Abbas Abbasov and Rustam Ibrahimbeyov, co-founders and leaders of an organization called the “Union of Billionaires, which was created by the intelligence services of a foreign state to interfere in political processes in Azerbaijan and was registered in that foreign state on July 4, 2012, under the name “Union of Russian-Azerbaijani Organizations,” as well as Ramiz Mehdiyev, the chairman of the Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (APFP), Ali Karimli, and party members Fuad Gahramanli, Ganimat Zayidov, and others, conspired to violently seize state power and forcibly alter the existing constitutional structure of the state.
Thus, after they established an organization called the “National Council of Democratic Forces” (“National Council”), which in 2013 nominated Rustam Ibragimbeyov, a foreign national, as a candidate in the presidential election of the Republic of Azerbaijan, they, with financial assistance and other organizational support from the special services of foreign states, transferred funds totaling 933,828 manat ($549,294), including funds received from Ramiz Mehdiyev and Abbas Abbasov, toward the commission of mass riots to violently seize state power, disobeying the lawful demands of government officials, disrupting public order, and interfering with the operation of transportation, enterprises, institutions, and organizations, as well as toward recruiting people from various regions of the republic for this purpose.
According to the technical evidence attached to the criminal case file, members of an organization called the “Union of Billionaires” were instructed to send Azerbaijani citizens to Azerbaijan during the 2013 presidential elections, who were working under their leadership or were otherwise under their protection in a foreign country, to involve their relatives and close friends in Azerbaijan in this scheme, and to ensure their participation in rallies and mass disturbances in accordance with the instructions of foreign intelligence services.
Reportedly, through these actions, Ramiz Mehdiyev committed acts aimed at seizing state power with the assistance of foreign intelligence services and forcibly altering the constitutional structure, as well as high treason, by aiding representatives of a foreign state contrary to the interests of the national security of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
In addition, Ramiz Mehdiyev laundered more than 17,000,000 manat ($9,999,706) obtained through criminal means prior to October 13, 2025.
In connection with the aforementioned actions, Ramiz Mehdiyev has been charged under Articles 193-1.3.2 (laundering of substantial assets obtained through criminal means), 274 (treason), and 278.1 of the Criminal Code.
