Mother of Azerbaijani conscript demands to investigate his death

Soldier Ilkin Zokhrabov died from a gunshot, and investigators called the incident a suicide. However, relatives of the deceased soldier believe he was killed. The mother of the deceased went out with a picket to the building of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) of Azerbaijan. The woman demands a fair investigation.

On March 22, 2021, Ilkin Zokhrabov, a soldier, who served a year and a half in the Azerbaijani army, died from a gunshot in a military unit in the Kelbadjar District eight days before his dismissal.

According to the investigators’ version, the soldier was driven to commit suicide through the fault of ensign Matlab Khadyev, who tortured him.

The soldier’s family does not believe in the investigators’ version. “A suicide cannot shoot himself in the back,” his mother Sariiya Zokhrabova emphasized.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in 2017, at least 59 soldiers died in Azerbaijan, 19 deaths in the Karabakh conflict zone were classified as combat losses, and the remaining 40 as non-combat losses, the Caspian Defence Studies Institute (CDSI) reported. The non-combat losses include nine accidental and road traffic deaths, four homicides, five suicides, and one firefighting death. The circumstances of the fatal incidents often remained unknown.