SOCAR top manager Turab Musaev became involved in a murder case

The investigation into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a journalist who exposed corruption in the highest echelons of the Maltese government, is turning into a major international scandal that threatens major troubles for the Azerbaijani authorities. Yorgen Fenech, a Maltese businessman who is a key partner of the Azerbaijani oil corporation SOCAR on the island, has been arrested as the main accused. Through Fenech’s structures, money was transferred to offshore companies from representatives of the ruling clan of Azerbaijan, whom the European press today names among the possible customers of the murder.

Two Russian media outlets that tried to relay these messages from the European press were recently subjected to powerful DDoS attacks. At the moment, access to their publications is temporarily limited, reports the popular telegram channel Nezygar .

What does Azerbaijan have to do with it?

Daphne Caruana Galizia was bombed in her own car on October 16, 2017. Before this, the journalist became famous not only in Malta, but throughout Europe, thanks to her bold investigations of corruption in the government of Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. Long before the fatal explosion, anonymous threats began to be received against Galicia, the walls of her house in Valeta were covered with obscene inscriptions by unknown persons, and someone stole and killed her dog. However, all these warnings did not break the journalist, she continued to work, and, obviously, the subjects of her investigations decided to take the “last resort” - murder. Immediately after the explosion, which shocked the entire liberal Europe, the Maltese media named the main “beneficiaries” of this crime as the head of the government administration, Keith Schembri, and the ex-Minister of Tourism, Konrad Mizzi, as well as the Prime Minister of Muscat himself, rallies for whose resignation continue in Malta to this day.

The names of Schembri and Mizzi appeared in the famous “Panamanian archives” , documents of the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which Daphne Caruana Galizia began to study in detail. The officials, as it turned out, were the hidden beneficiaries of the offshore companies Hearnville and Tillgate, registered in their interests by consultants from the firm OPM Nexia BT. Another offshore company, Egrant, was controlled, according to Galicia , by the prime minister’s wife, Michelle Muscat.

The threads from these companies led Daphne Galizia, as well as her three sons, who continued their mother’s work after her death, to the top leadership of Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijani state oil and gas corporation SOCAR. It turned out that money from the Dubai company Sahra FZCO, owned by the eldest daughter of the President of Azerbaijan Leyla Aliyeva , was transferred to offshore accounts under the guise of “rent” and “loan” payments for a long time. Previously, this company, as well as Shams al Sahra FZCO, were registered in the name of the sons of the Minister of Emergency Situations of Azerbaijan Kamaladdin Heydarov - Tale and Nijat Heydarov. These two companies, Sahra FZCO and Shams al Sahra FZCO, co-own one of the largest holdings in Azerbaijan - Gilan Holding. All this gives reason to assume that the Heydarovs Jr. were used as a legal “lining” for the president’s family - to transfer or sell control of Gilan Holding to his daughter Leyla.

Kamaleddin Heydarov is often called the “right hand” of Ilham Aliyev in the press , and American intelligence agencies, in a special report prepared back in 2010, described him as a person “perhaps even more powerful than the president himself.” According to their data, intercepted by Wikileaks , Heydarov Sr. made a huge fortune during the 9 years during which he headed the customs service of Azerbaijan, and now owns almost a more significant fortune, assets in different countries of the world than President Aliyev. As for Malta, the company Heritage Asset Holdings, owned by the sons of Kamaleddin Heydarov Tala and Nijat, is registered here, which owns several French factories for the production of porcelain and luxury bed linen.

These extensive Maltese-Azerbaijani connections, with their apparent corruption, were a matter of concern for Daphne Caruana Galizia. In her blog, she said that the informal connections of the Prime Minister of Malta and his wife, as well as the head of the government administration, the Minister of Education, the Minister of Tourism and other officials with Leyla Aliyeva, the daughter of “one of the most corrupt and oppressive” world leaders, are very harmful Malta’s international image. Galizia published photographs of Aliyeva with Michelle Muscat, calling them close friends, informed readers about the frequent unadvertised visits of Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi and other Maltese officials to Baku, often using private business jets, about “informal meetings” in Dubai, and, of course, about the reciprocal trips of Azerbaijanis to Malta . For which, for example, private entrepreneur Leyla Aliyeva willingly used the presidential “board” .

Leyla Aliyeva (left) and Michelle MuscatHowever, all these accusations of “corruption”, of course, could not serve as sufficient grounds to suspect the Azerbaijani side of involvement in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. These grounds emerged after police arrested Yorgen Fenech, co-owner of the Maltese company Electrogas, at the end of November. During interrogations of him, as well as the intermediary and direct perpetrators of the murder, it became clear that literally every nuance of this crime hid the interests of, if not Azerbaijan, then the Azerbaijani state corporation SOCAR.

Gas scam worth a billion

On November 20, while attempting to leave the port of Valletta on his own yacht, the famous businessman Yorgen Fenech was detained by the Maltese coast guard. A few days later, Reuters reported that police considered Fenech the organizer and “technical sponsor” of the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Testimony against him was given by taxi driver Melvin Theuma, an intermediary who received money from Fenech in the amount of 150 thousand euros for further transfer to the killers. Theuma’s note was published with appropriate recognition by the Times of Malta .

Yorgen Fenech is known as the man who co-founded the Electrogas consortium with the Azerbaijani state corporation SOCAR. In 2013, this company received a government order from the Maltese government for the construction of a thermal power plant running on liquefied natural gas (LNG), at a cost of 450 million euros. According to the Times of Malta , the guaranteed income of the co-owners of this joint venture over the next 19 years should amount to 3.9 billion euros - as indicated in the company’s business plan. But that’s not all: through Electrogas, Fenech and his Azerbaijani friends pulled off a deal worth $1 billion, as a result of which Malta, for the third year now, has been buying gas at prices almost double the market price - paying much more than its neighbors Greece, Italy or Turkey .

A note from the defendant Theum, in which Yorgen Fenech is identified as the organizer of the crimeThe interests of SOCAR on the board of Electrogas are represented by Azerbaijani Turab Musayev, who is also the director of the LNG and business development departments in SOCAR itself, and who is also an employee of its Swiss subsidiary, SOCAR Trading. According to Times of Malta journalist Ivan Martin, intermediary Theuma said that shortly before the murder of Daphne Galizia, Yorgen Fenech met and had a long conversation with “a certain Turab”. The reporter has no doubt that it was Turab Musaev and, as evidence, cites on his Twitter a fragment of email correspondence in which Musaev actually coordinates the actions of the Maltese government to “solve the problems” of the state energy company Enemalta. It is characteristic that the letter begins with the words “This morning Yorgen <Fenech> and I spoke with Konrad Mizzi...” - that is, two suspects of involvement in the murder of the journalist are mentioned at once. Well, of course, one cannot help but note the fact that an Azerbaijani citizen, representing the interests of SOCAR, together with a local businessman, decides the fate of the “national treasure” of Malta.

His brother, Taleh Musaev, works in a close business relationship with Turab Musaev. In particular, the brothers jointly own a blocking stake in the British company Savannah Petroleum , engaged in oil and gas development in Africa: Taleh through his companies Aralia Capital SA and Peleng Holding Corporation, SOCAR Trading through Luzon Investments SA

Taleh and Turab (right) MusaevsThe management structure of SOCAR Trading is generally a kind of carbon copy of the management system of Azerbaijan, where everything is tied exclusively to family and clan relations. Turab Musaev formally works as the deputy of Khayal Akhmedzade , the 42-year-old vice president for business development. In turn, Taleh Musayev was connected with Khayal Ahmedzadeh through the management of the company STL Oil and Gas SA, as stated on the official website of the Office of Legal Entities Registration of the Canton of Geneva (Switzerland) . This company was liquidated in 2017, and its obligations to third parties were transferred to SOCAR Trading.

A letter from Turab Musaev, in which he solves the problems of the Maltese energy sectorKhayal Ahmedzadeh works under the supervision of his brother, Adnan Ahmedzadeh, president of SOCAR Trading. Both of them are known in Azerbaijan as very wealthy people, owners of expensive real estate in Cologny, an elite suburb of Geneva. The Akhmedzade brothers are associated with the clan of Rovnag Abdulayev, the head of SOCAR, while the previous president of SOCAR Trading (who retained a high position in the company) Arzu Azimov is the brother of the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Araz Azimov. Adnan Ahmedzadeh’s classmate Maryam Almaszadeh also works in the Geneva office of the state corporation : she is the executive director.

Through the efforts of this closed but friendly Azerbaijani company, in close corrupt cooperation with Yorgen Fenech, as well as officials whose names are now on the pages of Maltese and European newspapers, Malta was imposed, as we said above, an extremely unprofitable deal.

The thermal power plant they created essentially became a channel for the resale of liquefied gas in the interests of SOCAR. According to the Times of Malta description , it looked like this . First, the SOCAR corporation, which does not produce its own liquefied gas (LNG is not produced in Azerbaijan at all), purchases it at market prices from another supplier. In 2017, such a supplier was Shell, from which the Azerbaijani state corporation purchased 380 million cubic meters with a target delivery to Malta. m of liquefied gas (14 million MMBTU) for $113 million. The formal buyer of gas is the joint venture Electrogas, and the Maltese state company Enemalta, using budget funds, purchases gas from it. And the purchase price for Enemalta was in the same 2017 - attention! - already 153 million dollars.

The total amount of losses incurred as a result of this scam by the Maltese side has not yet been calculated. The cost of the contract for the supply of LNG from SOCAR Electrogas and then Enemalta structures is estimated at $1 billion. The exact data is known only for 2017 - as a result of the leak of 680,000 service files of the Electrogas company, which ended up in the hands of Daphne Caruana Galizia. They turned out to be literally two months before her brutal murder.

And many in Malta, including the police, are inclined to believe that it was this leak that became the detonator of the explosive device that went off under the bottom of the journalist’s car.

"17 Blacks", Pilatus Bank and luxury real estate

At that time, Daphne Caruana Galizia had already managed to “unearth” and publish facts indicating that “kickbacks” to Maltese officials Schembri and Mizzi (apparently for assistance in obtaining government orders for Electrogas and LNG purchases) were transferred to their offshore companies through the Dubai company 17 Black. She also suggested that the owner of this company is Yorgen Fenech. Information about this appeared on the journalist’s blog on February 22, 2017, and two and a half years later, Reuters and the Times of Malta published irrefutable evidence of this version.

Two weeks after being mentioned on Galicia’s blog, 17 Black was renamed Wings Development and Fenech’s tracks were carefully covered.

However, Daphne Galizia still has at her disposal the testimony of a former employee of the Maltese bank Pilatus, a Russian woman Maria Efimova, who told the journalist that, among others, transfers were made through the bank from the companies Sahra FZCO and Shams al Sahra FZCO Leyla Aliyeva to the accounts of offshore companies controlled by members of the Maltese government. At least one such transaction has been documented : Galicia managed to talk about a payment order in the amount of $1.017 million on her blog. The recipient is listed as Egrant Inc. - the same one that the Panama Archives identified as belonging to the wife of Prime Minister Muscat. Galicia also talked about several “secret trips” of the prime minister and his subordinates (now involved in a murder case) to Dubai - apparently for negotiations with Azerbaijani partners.

In addition, investigators from the Malta Anti-Money Laundering Agency (FIAU) traced two payments totaling $1.4 million to 17 Black from a company in the Seychelles called Mayor Trans - the owner of the Seychelles company is listed as an Azerbaijani citizen named They haven’t named it yet. The “purpose of payments” lists “consulting services,” a term often used to move funds of illicit origin, the FIAU report says.

In a separate post, Daphne reported that the clients of Pilatus Bank are the son and daughter of the Supreme Ruler of Azerbaijan - Heydar Aliyev and Leyla Aliyeva. Moreover, before this, Heydar Aliyev Jr. tried to open an account at the Bank of Valletta, but he was refused on the grounds that the young man “is a major politically exposed person from one of the most corrupt countries in the world.”

The leak of this information almost cost Maria Efimova her life. Immediately after Galizia’s blog post, she also received death threats, and Pilatus Bank filed charges of embezzlement. Efimova was forced to take refuge in Greece, whose authorities granted her asylum and witness protection .

The facts revealed by Efimova and Galicia became the reason for a major investigation , which, after her death, was carried out by journalists from OCCRP, a global project for reporting on organized crime and corruption.

The article based on the results of this investigation was titled exhaustively simply: “Pilatus: a private bank for the ruling elite of Azerbaijan.” The publication details where the money withdrawn from the republic by the ruling clan went. As one commentator on the murdered journalist’s blog wrote: “This is blood money. They stole from the Azerbaijani people, stealing their property, killing and torturing their opponents, and driving the poor from their homes to build their “megalomaniac” buildings.”

Among such buildings owned, through controlled companies, by members of the Family and sons of Kamaleddin Heydarov are: 17 luxurious mansions, worth $8-10 million each, on the famous man-made island “Palm Jumeirah” in Dubai, Sofitel Resort & Spa - one of the most expensive hotels in the UAE, luxury real estate in Spain, Great Britain, Switzerland and billions of dollars in the accounts of dozens of offshore companies, the names of which can be found in the famous “Panama archives”.

If you follow the “iron” rule of any criminal investigation - look for who benefits - Malta and the EU should already bring direct charges against the Azerbaijani authorities and SOCAR. But the investigation has not yet been completed, and world diplomacy is too delicate a thing...

However, there was a distinct smell in the air of a major international scandal. And some observers have already suggested that Ilham Aliyev’s recent, extremely harsh public statement towards Europe is a kind of “preemptive strike.” Commenting on the prospects for Azerbaijan’s rapprochement with European countries, he said emotionally: “Where should we integrate? Integrate into a crisis? Integrate with those who say “Stop Islam”?!”

Well, at a minimum, the reaction of official Baku to possible charges in connection with the murder of a Maltese journalist is already clear.