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Azeri spies `planned energy terror attack´

BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 20 (UPI) — New details are emerging about three Azeri soldiers who defected to Armenia last year and were later convicted of spying against their homeland.

Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry counter-intelligence service says that 21-year-old Ruslan Khagani Bakirov and two colleagues, who were held by Armenian authorities from Feb. 15 until May 7, 2005, reached a secret agreement to cooperate with Armenian intelligence services after they were freed.

Security officials believe that Bakirov, along with Khayal Idris Abdullayev and Hikmat Adem Taghiyev, defected while they were on guard duty.

New details are now being reported about the activities of the three men, convicted of treason and espionage last October by an Azeri military court, and now said to have been plotting terrorist attacks against energy installations.

Bakirov’s release from Armenian custody was secured through the mediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross. During initial debriefing, Bakirov acknowledged that he cooperated with the Armenians but his interrogators then determined that this initial testimony was actually part of a preplanned disinformation campaign prepared for Bakirov by Armenian intelligence service officers.

Under further questioning Bakirov said that Armenian intelligence officers offered him, Abdullayev and Taghiyev bribes to collaborate. Bakirov said that Armenian intelligence officials met with him seven times during his time in Armenia, and that he was nicknamed “Ramin” and promised $3,000-4,000 for each errand he carried out for the Armenians.

BakuToday reported on March 18 that Bakirov said that an Armenian intelligence officer, “Rudik,” instructed Bakirov to bomb Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s convoy, the Western-financed $3.6 billion Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil export pipeline, natural gas pipelines, the Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku and to take photos of military-strategic establishments of interest to Armenia.

Azerbaijan’s Court Martial on Grave Crimes sentenced Bakirov and Abdullayev to 12 years in jail and Taghiyev to 11 years in jail last October after their conviction on a number of charges, including high treason, espionage, abandoning their post and desertion in the face of the enemy.

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