Ex-chairman of Azerbaijan's largest bank sentenced to 15 yrs' imprisonment
BAKU. Oct 14 (Interfax) - The Baku court for grave crimes sentenced former chairman of the board of the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) Jahangir Hajiyev to 15 years' imprisonment, the court told Interfax.
"The Baku court for grave crimes concluded a process in the case of a fraud in the IBA on Monday. Hajiyev was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment by the decision of the court on Friday," the court representative said.
The following individuals were also defendants in the case: the IBA central branch directors Ilgar Abdullayev, Anar Sultanov and Yusif Alakbarov, general director of the Inter Security LLC, which guarded the bank's administrative facilities, Ibragim Huseynov, former director of the bank's transport branch Kanan Orujov, former director of the bank's Narimanov branch and current chairman of the supervisory board of the AFB Bank JSC Mammad Jahangirov and ex-director of the Baku Hazelnut Factory Azad Javadov.
The court sentenced Sultanov, Abdullayev, Jahangirov and Orujov to eight years' imprisonment each, Huseynov and Alakbarov to 11 and Javadov to 12.
As reported, the investigators established that Hajiyev, who served as the IBA's chairman of the board in 2001-2015, created and led an organized criminal group in collusion with other individuals. According to the Azerbaijani Interior Ministry, abusing the office he ordered to open accounts in the names of him and his family, as well as other people, and transfer large financial means to them.
It was also established that Hajiyev and other defendants embezzled 47,144 million manat. The damage they inflicted to the IBA totaled to 211,597 million manat (over $138 million).
Hajiyev's ex-wife, Zamina Hajiyeva, was put on the wanted list.
Hajiyev resigned from the post of the IBA chairman of the board for medical reasons in March 2015. He was arrested on suspicion of organizing a large-scale embezzlement from the bank in December 2015.
The IBA is the largest bank in Azerbaijan, the majority shareholder of which is the state.