Former Azerbaijani diplomat and government critic Emin Ibrahimov was late on July 22 detained for allegedly stabbing a person, a charge his lawyer and his family say he refutes as entirely fabricated. Ibrahimov subsequently made claims of torture in detention.

The lawyer, Aqil Layic, told RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service that his client described to him how an unknown person attacked him near Khalglar Dostlugu metro station in Baku. Immediately after, several men in plainclothes appeared and took him to Nizami district police department.

"The detention of a diplomat looks like a new tendency. Emin Ibrahimov said that he is the victim of a provocation. He rejects the charge as he insists he did not commit the crime he is charged with," Layic said.

Layic added that Ibrahimov claimed to him that police used an electric-shock device to force him to reveal his mobile phone PIN.

The 43-year-old Ibrahimov used to work at the Azerbaijani Embassy in the US and has held other diplomatic posts as well.

If convicted, he faces up to eight years in prison.

In recent years, Ibrahimov criticised the government for Baku’s worsening relations with the West, among other things.

According to information provided to TURAN Information Agency by the internal affairs ministry, a personal dispute arose between Ibrahimov and a citizen born in 1987. "As a result, Emin Ibrahimov injured a citizen with a knife, and the injured person was taken to hospital," the ministry stated.

The former diplomat was detained under Article 126.1 of the Criminal Code (deliberately causing serious harm to health).

On 20 September 2023, Ibrahimov was sentenced to 30 days of administrative detention.

The administrative detention sentence for "spreading harmful information" was handed to Ibrahimov after, following Azerbaijan’s move to complete the takeover of all Armenian-controlled Karabakh, he wrote how the conflict with Armenia was "a policy playing into Russia's hands," according to VOA Azerbaijani. 

Ibrahimov after serving the sentence told the news service that he endured violence during the detention and said: "Individuals in civilian clothes raided my home without permission, not even allowing me to put on shoes. I was arrested for my critical comments. The current euphoria in the country [over the taking of the territory] is being used to further restrict rights and strengthen authoritarianism.

“Both domestic and foreign policies go hand in hand, primarily serving the highest goal – the preservation of the regime. Their strategic course is leading the country into further darkness. Every passing year, the further restriction of our rights is not my fabrication but a fact. Expecting anything other than repression is impossible."

Ibrahimov is known for his repeated accusations that Azerbaijan serves as a Russian proxy. 

In remarks to bne IntelliNews in relation to Aliyev's visit to Oxford, England for the 4th summit of the European Political Community on July 18, he said: "It is a strategic miscalculation of the West to treat Aliyev differently from [Belarusian president Alexander] Lukashenko and [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin. They are cut from the same cloth. Appeasement will not yield positive changes.

“At the end of the day, he [Aliyev] is in strategic alignment with Putin in preventing Western influence and democracy in the region. By strengthening this regime, the West strengthens Russia in this region"

Ibrahimov has supported the West's adoption of sanctions against the Azerbaijani authorities. "We need to weaken this regime. That is why sanctions against the regime are useful. [...] Sanctions should be drafted in such a way that the people do not suffer from them and the regime is not given additional excuses for manipulation. [...] The public should see that the West's goal is precisely to weaken the regime. And you can do it best from the inside," he said in an interview with TURAN on April 25.

Ibrahimov graduated from Baku State University with a degree in international relations in 2002 and earned a master's degree in international relations from Ankara University in 2005. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan in 2007.

In 2009, he completed the Senior Course at the NATO Defense College and became a third secretary on 10 February 2012.  He worked at the Azerbaijani embassy in the US from 2012 to 2016, and at the Azerbaijani diplomatic mission in Uruguay from 2016 to 2019. He left the world of diplomatic work in 2020.