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General Prosecutorâ€™s Office and Ministry of National Security issue statement on arrest of Leyla Yunus

31 July 2014 12:31 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Hafiz Heydarov – APA. General Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of National Security (MNS) have issued a statement on the arrest of Leyla Yunus. Azerbaijani citizen Mirgadirov Rauf Habibulla oglu, who is now under preliminary investigation, was arrested as a suspect for a crime on 19 April 2014 as there were suspicions that he might have betrayed the Azerbaijani state by purposefully helping employees of the Armenian Republic’s special service bodies with his espionage since April 2008, and was put in pre-trial detention with the decision of the Nasimi District Court under article #274 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the press service of General Prosecutor’s Office told APA.

It was discovered that Yunusova Leyla Islam, with the organization named “the Institute of Peace and Democracy”, without legal registration, which she founded in and has been chairing since 2002, have several times organized visits of Mirgadirov Rauf Habibulla oglu to the Republic of Armenia from the Republic of Georgia together with Arif Yunus at the expenses of the funds she got alongside Shahnazaryan David Gurgenovich, Bagdasaryan Laura Seyranovna and others from international donor organiozations in the name of implementing joint projects on “people’s diplomacy” between Armenia’s Region Research Center and other NGOs and the funds that were transferred to the accounts of her husband Yunusov Arif Seyfulla oglu, who has been head of department of his organization, in the commercial banks operating in Azerbaijan by Karen Ohanjanyan from a bank in the UK in 2002 and by Armenian NGO “Journalistic Researches” from a bank in Yerevan for helping foreign intelligence to manipulating the persons after learning their personal qualities and making sure of their desire to make a good living. In some of those visits, Arif Yunusov was also present along with Rauf Mirgadirov to hold several meetings with representatives of the agencies controlled by former Armenian Minister of National Security David Shahnazaryan and special service bodies.

At the same time, connecting different Azerbaijani citizens whose names are unknown at the moment to employees of Armenia’s special service bodies to involve them in secret partnership to collect data on the areas of socio-political, industrial, energy, military and technical supply with the purpose of using them against the Republic of Azerbaijan, Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunus have fulfilled their duty on giving concrete instructions to them on propagating the importance of recognizing the sovereignty of the illegal regime in Nagorno-Karabakh in exchange for the return of our occupied lands. As a result, they have been able to transmit the scheme of military units, aerodromes strategically important state facilities with their photos to representatives of the enemy country’s intelligence bodies.

Moreover, Yunusova Leyla Islam, as a founder and director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy without legal registration, included false information that she is allegedly a director of the Society of Women of Azerbaijan for Peace and Democracy in the Caucasus, registered on March 27, 1996, in the official documents allowing to carry out transactions of accounts belonged to this Society, in Unibank OJSC on November 21, 2002, and obtained check books, submitting these documents to the bank. She provided the transfer of total AZN 167 1999, $620 878 and €263 745 to the bank accounts of this organization in accordance with the grant agreements signed with the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED), German Marshall Fund and other donor organizations in 2006-2014 and cashed these funds, breaching the requirements of the Law on Accounting of the Republic of Azerbaijan. She conducted illegal business activities, receiving AZN 526 943 on the unregistered grant agreements, and evaded taxes in amount of AZN 369 378 in accordance with tax legislation.

At the same time, there are suspicious that Leyla Yunusova cashed $88 468 out of $88 910 transferred to the accounts of the Society of Women of Azerbaijan for Peace and Democracy in the Caucasus in Unibank OJSC by the National Endowment for Democracy, German Marshall Fund and OSI Assistance Foundation in 2009-2012, falsifying official documents. After depositing $71 000 of these funds to her saving accounts, she withdrew the collected $78 130 with total interests from her accounts on April 24, 2014 and transferred to the account of his husband Arif Yunus is that bank. Following this, Arif Yunus immediately transferred these funds to his personal account in Sberbank CZ bank based in the Republic of Czech.

Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunus were repeatedly summoned to the investigation body, but they both avoided testifying without any valid reason. As a result, it was decided to forcibly take them to the investigation agency in accordance with the article #178 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Because of all of these reasonable suspicions, Leyla Yunus has been sent to pretrial detention under the articles #274, 178.3.2, 192.2.2, 213.2.2, 320.1 and 320.2 of the Criminal Code. Arif Yunus faced charges under the articles# 274 and 178.3.2 of the Criminal Code. Taking into account his state, it was decided to transfer him under police surveillance.

Investigation is underway. The public will be provided additional information.