Vidadi Isgandarli, an opponent of the Azerbaijani regime, died on Tuesday October 1, two days after receiving around fifteen stab wounds at his home. He is not the first dissident from his country to have been targeted in France.
The voice of the man who dared to openly criticize the authoritarian regime of Ilham Aliev, President of Azerbaijan, was definitively extinguished on Tuesday October 1. Vidadi Isgandarli, a long-time opponent of the regime in power in Azerbaijan, died in Mulhouse hospital (Haut-Rhin), two days after being stabbed at his home. Due to the danger weighing on the 62-year-old man, the French authorities granted him a humanitarian visa in 2017. Before him, other dissidents were victims of similar attacks in France. Libé takes stock of what we know about this murder.
The facts
While he is in his apartment located in Mulhouse on Sunday September 29, Vidadi Isgandarli, very critical of the regime in place in Azerbaijan, is attacked by three masked individuals. According to his lawyer Henri Carpentier, this attack happened in the early morning, while the blogger “slept at his house”. Through his cries, however, he managed to alert the neighborhood, which put his attackers to flight. He then calls his brother, who himself requested the intervention of the emergency services and the police. The first elements of the investigation then reported around fifteen stab wounds and defensive wounds to the dissident’s arms.
An investigation for “attempted murder” was immediately opened by the prosecution. However, Vidadi Isgandarli will never be able to be heard by investigators on these facts: he died on Tuesday as a result of his injuries at Mulhouse hospital, where he had been placed in intensive care.
The victim’s profile
Vidadi Isgandarli, aged 62, was a former Azerbaijani prosecutor. He obtained a humanitarian visa in France in 2017, granted to people whose life or security is threatened. He then settled in France with his family. But on his YouTube channel and his blog, he continued to regularly criticize the authoritarian regime of Ilham Aliev, president of Azerbaijan since 2003. Vidadi Isgandarli “had recently strongly criticized President Aliyev and his regime”, explains Me Carpentier.
The regime of authoritarian Ilham Aliev, whose vice-president is his own wife, Mehriban Alieva, is often singled out by human rights defenders. Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic of some 10 million inhabitants, is also accustomed to the bottom places in the rankings of human rights groups.
The investigation
Is the dissident’s attack directly linked to the autocrat in power in Baku? “All trails remain open“, says the prosecution, which claims to want to exploit “all that can be”, and in particular images from video surveillance cameras. An autopsy was also ordered. A new investigation, this time for murder, was entrusted to the interdepartmental service of the Mulhouse judicial police.
The dissident had also already been the victim of an attack in Mulhouse in 2022. At the time, he had been “stone-throwing victim”, explains the prosecution. His attackers were arrested and a criminal order was issued. But the prosecution had not noted a political dimension, affirming that it “had been attacked by young people from the neighborhood because, according to the attackers, he was harassing a young woman. The police investigation concluded that it was a simple neighborhood dispute.”
Another opponent already attacked several times
The murder of Vidadi Isgandarli echoes precedents. Another opponent of the regime in power in Azerbaijan, Mahammad Mirzali, also a refugee in France, “had miraculously survived three assassination attempts carried out in France and organized by Azerbaijan”, explains Me Carpentier, also the dissident’s lawyer. The last of them occurred in Nantes in June 2022. “His only mistake was to criticize an authoritarian and kleptocratic regime. The perpetrators have been identified by French justice and will be judged in the coming months, but the order givers have not been worried. he continued. “Mahammad Mirzali denounces the impunity of the highest authorities in Baku and their desire to reign in violence on French territory,” still informs his lawyers.
In an article from West France paru mardi, Mohammad Mirzali se demande “until when France will accept seeing Azerbaijan attack people on its soil. This regime reigns in violence.” And the activist continues: “Vidadi had felt threatened for three weeks. This is what I experienced myself… It brings back my biggest fears. When I found out about this on Tuesday, I literally collapsed. They can strike at any time.”
For its part, Amnesty International urges “the French authorities to examine all possible motives” for the murder of Vidadi Isgandarli, and “notably his criticisms against the president and the Azerbaijani government, which were the reasons which pushed him to go into exile”. Natalia Nozadze, researcher for the South Caucasus region within the NGO, adds: “This is the second time in recent years that an Azerbaijanis living in exile in France has been the victim of a knife attack […] The world must know who is responsible for these attacks against Azerbaijani immigrants on French soil and measures must be taken to prevent this from happening again.”
