Gubad Ibadoglu,  chairman of the Azerbaijan Democracy and Welfare Party (ADR),  has been detained on charges of production, acquisition or sale of counterfeit money or securities. The charges were amplified to include the involvement of an organised group, a shift that could potentially increase his sentence to a maximum of 12 years, up from seven.

Ibadoglu, who has been living and working in London for several years, had recently returned to Azerbaijan to visit his ailing mother.

Ibadoglu's lawyer, Zibeyda Sadygova, announced that his client will appeal the decision to detain him for four months, and that he denied all the allegations. Ibadoglu, who was taken from his office by the police late in the evening and subsequently placed under arrest, insists that the $40,000 of counterfeit money allegedly found in his house during the police search does not belong to him. A number of documents related to the activities of the Economic Research Center, which Ibadoglu led 14-15 years ago, were also seized from his office.

Ibadoglu's family has raised concerns about his health during his detention, as he suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes. They report that he has been held in the Main Organised Crime Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, without access to essential medications or clothes. Attempts to get a response from the Ministry of Internal Affairs regarding these concerns have so far proved futile.

Adding to the controversy surrounding Ibadoglu's arrest, his wife, Irada Bayramova, has claimed that she was subjected to physical violence while she was detained with her husband. She alleges that unidentified individuals in civilian clothes used force against her while taking her into custody. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has denied these allegations.

As Ibadoglu was forced into a police car after his arrest, he managed to communicate briefly with journalists, attributing his arrest to an "order from Ilham Aliyev". 

Ibadoglu has long been active in Azerbaijan's tiny NGO community, as well as holding a series of academic positions abroad. He was previously  a visiting fellow at Duke and Princeton Universities, and at Rutgers University in the US. Most recently, he was a senior fellow at the LSE, where his expertise was listed as "the political effects of natural resources in Caspian Sea Basin regions and the correlation between corruption and authoritarianism; rentier's state; and challenges for the transition into democracy".