Azerbaijani scientist, released from Iranian prison, plans to sue his Iranian employer

Rashid Aliev, an Azerbaijani scientist-physicist, recently released from custody in Iran, has declared at a press conference on August 25 that when he was in the prison of the Iranian special service ETTELAT, he permanently felt the support organized in Azerbaijan in his defence.

Rashid Aliev, 57, was arrested in Iran on October 5, 2008, on charges of espionage. In 2006-2008, he cooperated with the Iranian Sazan Elektronics Industry Company. After the end of his contract he returned to Baku. On October 5, 2008, under request of the head of the company Abbasa Eftekhari he returned to Iran, where of the following day he was arrested for breaking the visa regime. Later he saw charges of espionage. The scientist was released on August 11, 2010, 22 months after his arrest.

Rashid Aliev said at the press conference that he fell victim "of provocation and spy scare in Iran." He went to work there because of low salaries paid to scientists in Azerbaijan; however, he worked there under an official contract with the Sazan Elektronics Industry Company, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

According to Mr Aliev, he created from zero a laboratory for developments in the field on laser technologies in a deserted region.

He has reported also that he received orders from Iranian militaries, but he refused to cooperate with them.

After two years of work, Aliev was suddenly accused "of exporting Iranian secrets to Azerbaijan," in particular, of his own drawings. "But this accusation is absurd, since these drawings were made by me. How can a fruit of my brain be a disclosure of one's secrets?" Aliev asked. On the other hand, according to the scientist, Iran is strongly behind in this area, and what "they regard to be their secrets, already 20 years ago were used by those whom Iran calls its enemies."

The scientist is going to sue the Sazan Elektronics Industry Company, for whose guilt, as he believes, he found himself in the Iranian prison.

The embassy of Iran in Baku continues refusing from any comments on scientist Aliev's case. Employees of the embassy assert that this issue "is beyond the embassy's competence."

Earlier, the Penitentiary Service of Azerbaijan had refuted statements of some local and foreign mass media about exchange of Rashid Aliev, arrested in Iran for a group of convicts accused in Baku of terrorism, including citizens of Lebanon connected with the Hezbollah.