Sentence passed in high-profile Azeri bribery case

The 14-month-scandal dubbed "Gular-gate" has ended with a jail term for one of the protagonists.

On December 2, Baku's Court for Serious Crimes sentenced Gular Ahmadova, a former parliamentarian from the ruling Yeni Azerbaycan Party (YAP), to three years' imprisonment on a charge of embezzlement.

The prosecution's case against her was founded on a video clip, filmed by a hidden camera and uploaded to YouTube in late September 2012, which contained what the prosecution construed as a demand by Ahmadova and her friend Sevinj Babayeva for $1 million from Elshad Abdullayev, former rector of the private Azerbaijan International University, for ensuring election to the Milli Mejlis in the 2005 Azerbaijani parliamentary poll.

Ahmadova's aide Shahid Ahmadov (no relation) immediately admitted that the filmed conversation between his boss, Babayeva and Abdullayev had taken place.

Ahmadov added, however, that the clip was edited, and that Ahmadova had in fact sought to pressure Abdullayev to repay money Abdullayev had solicited from Ahmadova's constituents in order to admit them to his university, but then failed to do so.

The university was closed in late 2010, after which Abdullayev emigrated to France, where he currently lives.

Ahmadova also insisted that the video footage had been falsified. She suggested that Abdullayev's motive in doing so was to boost his chances of gaining political asylum in France.

Abdullayev retaliated at once with a new video clip addressed to Azerbaijan's Prosecutor-General Zakir Garalov.

Abdullayev said he had paid a total of $2 million to Ahmadova to secure his election to parliament with the intention of making use of that position to expedite the investigation into the abduction in 2003 of his brother Mahir. The Prosecutor-General's office promptly established a commission to probe Mahir Abdullayev's disappearance, but it has apparently made no progress.