AZERBAIJAN….

AZERBAIJAN….

An uprising at a prison camp near Baku in early January resulted in the deaths of some prominent opponents of the regime of President Haidar Aliev. Most notable among them was former Deputy Defense Minister Vahid Musaev, serving a fifteen-year sentence for his role in a July 1995, attempted coup. During the coup attempt, the regular army defeated elements of an elite force of Interior Ministry troops and reportedly frustrated an attempt by military conspirators to shoot down the president’s plane with a surface-to-air missile. Surviving members of the elite force led the mutiny at the Gobustan prison camp on January 8. At least eleven inmates and two police guards were killed in the fighting. Opposition parties had recently sought an amnesty for many of those involved in the 1995 events.