Gular Mikayil qizi Ahmadova (), née Aliyeva (born 20 August 1965 in
Baku
Baku (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Azerbaijan, largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus region. Baku is below sea level, which makes it the List of capital ci ...
), is a retired
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...
i politician, former member of the
National Assembly of Azerbaijan
The National Assembly (), also transliterated as Milli Mejlis, is the legislative branch of government in Azerbaijan. The unicameral National Assembly has 125 deputies: previously 100 members were elected for five-year terms in single-seat co ...
and former member of the ruling
New Azerbaijan Party
The New Azerbaijan Party (, YAP) is the ruling political party in Azerbaijan, founded on 21 November 1992 under the leadership of Heydar Aliyev. After his election as President of Azerbaijan on 3 October 1993, and the party's victory at 1995 parl ...
.
She gained notoriety in 2012 after a video shot on a hidden camera was released, featuring Ahmadova negotiating a bribe sum with lawyer and fellow party member
Elshad Abdullayev to help arrange, among other things, his election to the Azerbaijani parliament. The corruption scandal which ensued became known as Gulargate (by analogy with the
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the Presidency of Richard Nixon, administration of President Richard Nixon. The scandal began in 1972 and ultimately led to Resignation of Richard Nixon, Nix ...
) and led to Ahmadova's stepping down as an MP and later arrest and expulsion from the party. She was sentenced to three years in prison for embezzlement and failure to report a grave offence, but her prison term was suspended 14 months into the sentence.
Early life and family
Gular Ahmadova was born in Baku, the oldest of the family's four children, but raised chiefly by her grandmother. Ahmadova's father was originally from the village of
Nardaran
Nardaran is a settlement and municipality on the Abşeron Peninsula in Baku, Azerbaijan. It has a population of 8,300. Located 25 kilometers northeast of central Baku, it is politically part of the Baku city-subdivision and treated as a suburb. ...
near Baku, while her mother a native of
Shamakhy
Shamakhi (, ) is a city in Azerbaijan and the administrative centre of the Shamakhi District. The city's estimated population was 31,704. It is famous for its traditional dancers, the Shamakhi Dancers, and also for perhaps giving its name to the ...
.
[Anar Garayli]
Gular Ahmadova: I Beat Up the Two Brothers So Badly, One of Them Went Unconscious
Lent.az. 15 August 2011. Retrieved 8 July 2013 In 1986, she graduated with honors from the Azerbaijan State Pedagogical Institute with a degree in mathematics. For the next eight years, she worked as a teacher and vice-principal at various educational institutions. Ahmadova holds a master's degree in psychology. She taught at
Baku State University
Baku State University (BSU) (BDU; ) is a public university located in Baku, Azerbaijan. Established on 1 September 1919 by the Parliament of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the university started with faculties of history and philology, physics ...
until her arrest. 1994 marked the beginning of her career as a civil servant when she was employed by the
Ministry of Youth and Sports of Azerbaijan first as a chief training manager, then head of a department and finally head of the administration. In 1996, she became chair of the Children's Organization of Azerbaijan.
Ahmadova met her future husband, Fikrat Ahmadov, at the university and the two got married in 1985.
They have three children. Fikrat Ahmadov worked as head of the advertisement department for the national broadcaster
AzTV
AzTV or Azerbaijan Television () is a state-controlled national television station in Azerbaijan. It is the oldest television channel in the country, having first broadcast from Baku on 14 February 1956 in what was then the Azerbaijan Soviet ...
from 1995 to 2012. He reportedly "resigned of his own free will" following the corruption scandal involving his wife.
Political career
Member of the New Azerbaijan Party, which has been in power in Azerbaijan since 1993, Gular Ahmadova, decisively won seats in the National Assembly in three consecutive parliamentary elections: in
2000
2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year.
Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...
,
2005
2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...
and
2010
The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...
, representing the
Yasamal I and lately
Khatai II constituency. In a hidden-camera video published in the course of the Gulargate scandal, Ahmadova's friend Sevinj Babayeva claimed that in 2005, the head of the
Presidential Administration Ramiz Mehdiyev arranged for police groups to arrive at Ahmadova's constituency and "take measures" to secure her victory. This was later confirmed by Ahmadova's opposition rival
Eldar Namazov who said his observers in ten polling stations had been attacked by the police and their protocols destroyed.
[Elshad Abdullayev's New Video Clarified 2005 Election](_blank)
Radio Liberty. 14 December 2012. The issue remained unaddressed following Ahmadova's arrest.
During her parliament membership, she proved herself a vehement critic of both the opposition and her fellow ruling party members, and described herself as "a
Heydar Aliyev
Heydar Alirza oghlu Aliyev (10 May 1923 – 12 December 2003) was an Azerbaijani politician who was a Soviet party boss in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic from 1969 to 1982, and the third president of Azerbaijan from October 1993 to ...
follower". In a 2006 interview, she accused the then recently sacked and imprisoned Health Minister,
Ali Insanov, of giving Azerbaijani children up for illegal adoption abroad.
She was known as an advocate for children's rights and one of the few members of parliament who openly voiced their concern with regard to the frequent non-combat deaths among new conscripts in the Azerbaijani army in the early 2010s. She was also known to have opposed the passing of a law decriminalizing libel, stating that it would encourage
vigilante
Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating, and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority.
A vigilante is a person who practices or partakes in vigilantism, or undertakes public safety and retributive justice ...
justice.
2009 assault incident
On 18 April 2009, Ahmadova was physically assaulted by two unnamed females who showed up at her house late in the evening. The incident was reported to the police, but Ahmadova refused to comment on it. The police told the media that the incident was property-related.
''Khural'' newspaper trial
On the night of 28 October 2011, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper ''Khural'' Avaz Zeynally was arrested after Gular Ahmadova submitted audio materials to the police alleging that Zeynally had been blackmailing her for 10,000
AZN in return for not publishing controversial material about Ahmadova's corruption activity (which later became known as the Gulargate scandal). Zeynally claimed that the voice on the recording did not belong to him. He accused Ahmadova of brokering his persecution by the state. After the release of the first Gulargate video, Zeynally said there were obvious parallels between his case and the scandal. He claimed being harassed soon after Elshad Abdullayev submitted a complaint to the Attorney General's against Gular Ahmadova in July 2011. According to Zeynally, Ahmadova contacted him personally in October 2011 asking him "not to publish any information against her that he may be given".
Despite no other evidence having been brought against Zeynally, he remained in custody. On 12 March 2013, he was sentenced to nine years in prison. Zeynally appealed the verdict.
Zeynally was pardoned and released on 30 December 2014, almost eight months after Ahmadova's sentence was suspended.
Gulargate scandal
On 25 September 2012, ex-rector of the
Azerbaijan International University (which was stripped of its license and closed down in 2010), Elshad Abdullayev, who currently resides in
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, posted a video on
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
, dated 2005, in which a hidden camera captured a conversation involving himself, Gular Ahmadova and her friend Sevinj Babayeva in what appears to be an office room. During the sixteen-and-a-half-minute long footage, the three are seen and heard negotiating a price that Abdullayev is expected to pay in return for being given a seat in the National Assembly of Azerbaijan as an MP. In the video, Abdullayev offers to pay 500,000 USD, while Ahmadova insists on 1,000,000. In the video, Abdullayev repeatedly tries to get Ahmadova to admit that the money will go directly to the Head of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan Republic
Ramiz Mehdiyev, though she never openly confirms that.
Ahmadova initially denied being in the video and laid counter-accusations of bribery against Abdullayev. Later Ahmadova and Babayeva made a statement that the money discussed in the video referred, in fact, to the student tuition fees misappropriated by Abdullayev after the closing down of the International University which they, as mediators, were urging him to redistribute to the former students. Gular Ahmadova stepped down as an MP in order "not to hinder the investigation".
In the next video released on 6 October 2012, Gular Ahmadova is heard talking about various high-ranking government officials compiling lists of MP candidates which they would like to see in the National Assembly following the election. Among them, she mentions Minister of Economic Development
Farhad Aliyev
Farhad Aliyev () is an Azerbaijani politician. He was born in 1963 in Azerbaijan.
Early life
Farhad Aliyev received his school education at Alar village in 1970–1980, where he was born. Having completed his secondary education with an honors ...
, Minister of Health Ali Insanov (both arrested on the eve of the 2005 election for planning a
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup
, is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...
and sentenced to imprisonment), Minister of Emergency Situations
Kamaladdin Heydarov
Kamaladdin Heydarov Fattah oglu (; born 15 July 1961) is an Azerbaijani politician and businessperson, serving as the Ministry of Emergency Situations (Azerbaijan), Minister of Emergency Situations.
He has close ties to the ruling Aliyev family i ...
, head of the Presidential Administration
Ramiz Mehdiyev, President
Ilham Aliyev
Ilham Heydar Oghlu Aliyev (born 24 December 1961) is an Azerbaijani politician who has been the fourth president of Azerbaijan since 2003. He is also the leader of the New Azerbaijan Party since 2005.
The son and second child of former Aze ...
, and First Lady
Mehriban Aliyeva
Mehriban Arif gizi Aliyeva (; born 26 August 1964) is an Azerbaijani politician and physician who is the Vice President of Azerbaijan, vice president and First Lady of Azerbaijan, First Lady of Azerbaijan.
She is married to Ilham Aliyev, the pre ...
. Sevinj Babayeva confirms this in the video, which, together with the first video, appears to be a fragment of a single conversation.
On 13 December 2012, Abdullayev released another video, in which he is seen speaking with Ahmadova's friend Sevinj Babayeva one-on-one. In the video, Babayeva claims that "Ramiz is behind this all" and "has the final say". She also reveals the details of Gular Ahmadova's win against
Eldar Namazov in the 2005 parliamentary election through police involvement orchestrated by the said "Ramiz" to target Namazov's supporters at the polling station and changes made to the final election protocol for the constituency.
On 14 December 2012, the primary regional assembly of the New Azerbaijan Party voted in favour of expelling Ahmadova from the party.
Sevinj Babayeva, who fled to
Istanbul
Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
,
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
after the release of the first video, was reported to have died of
heart failure
Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome caused by an impairment in the heart's ability to Cardiac cycle, fill with and pump blood.
Although symptoms vary based on which side of the heart is affected, HF ...
after checking in at a clinic on 26 December. Babayeva's son said he did not believe his mother had died of a heart problem and accused Ahmadova of having Babayeva poisoned after persuading her to escape to Istanbul and funding her trip and stay. The Attorney General's Office later did confirm Babayeva's departure on Ahmadova's insistence, but the autopsy did not reveal signs of poisoning.
Arrest, trial and imprisonment
Gular Ahmadova was arrested on 13 February 2013 while attempting to leave for
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States
Georgia may also refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Georgia (name), a list of pe ...
. According to her lawyers, Ahmadova was on her way to receive medical treatment there. She was charged with
embezzlement
Embezzlement (from Anglo-Norman, from Old French ''besillier'' ("to torment, etc."), of unknown origin) is a type of financial crime, usually involving theft of money from a business or employer. It often involves a trusted individual taking ...
and failure to report a grave offence. She pleaded not guilty. Her official website was shut down, along with the newspaper ''Markaz'' which she had founded in 1998. On 5 July 2013, the Central Election Commission announced there would be no by-election held to fill the vacant seat following Ahmadova's resignation.
According to Ahmadova's lawyers, her physical and psychological state deteriorated while in custody. She refused to give any testimony till Elshad Abdullayev was tried, and alleged the videos had been edited. She was found guilty on all counts and, on 2 December 2013, sentenced to three years in custody. The relatively mild verdict was ruled considering the fact that Ahmadova had previously had a clear criminal record, had been three-time elected parliament member, had engaged in charitable work, was suffering from unnamed health conditions and was a parent of an underage child. In January 2014, the Baku Court of Appeal upheld this decision.
Release and later life
On 5 May 2014, the Court of Appeal held a hearing, following which Ahmadova's sentence was suspended and she was released immediately, having thus served 14 months of her sentence in custody. She continued to claim her innocence. The decision was heavily criticised by opposition members. Legal expert Aslan Ismayilov questioned the validity of Gular Ahmadova's mild sentence for embezzling a large sum of money in comparison with the sentence of the opposition youth activist Ilkin Rustamzadeh charged with hooliganism and organising unauthorised protests, a much less grave offence, and sentenced to eight years in custody in 2014. Elshad Abdullayev commented on Ahmadova's release by referring to the whole legal process as "a court show that went to demonstrate once again the lawless nature of Azerbaijani courts."
In an August 2015 interview, Ahmadova, without offering a specific date, admitted that she had been on the brink of committing suicide during "the most difficult times" of her life. In late 2015, Ahmadova filed an appeal in order to have herself cleared out of all charges but on 16 February 2016, after she had failed twice to show up for a hearing, the court refused to rule in her favour.
In February 2020, Ahmadova's son, 33, was arrested for
criminal possession of a weapon
Criminal possession of a weapon is the unlawful possession of a weapon by an individual. It may also be an additional crime if a violent offense was committed with a deadly weapon or firearm.
Such crimes are public order crimes and are consider ...
.
Gülər Əhmədovanın oğlu barəsində həbs qətimkan tədbiri seçildi
''Lent.az''. 12 February 2020. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahmadova, Gular
1965 births
Living people
Politicians from Baku
20th-century Azerbaijani mathematicians
Members of the National Assembly (Azerbaijan)
Women members of the National Assembly (Azerbaijan)
Politicians convicted of embezzlement
Prisoners and detainees of Azerbaijan
Azerbaijani prisoners and detainees
Azerbaijani politicians convicted of crimes
21st-century Azerbaijani women politicians
21st-century Azerbaijani politicians