Can the secret services of a foreign state come here, right under the noses of the French security services, and kill political opponents even in their own bedrooms? This question has taken on an urgent nature ever since a prominent blogger critical of the Azerbaijani government, Vidadi Isgandarli, was found with terrible injuries at his home in Mulhouse in north-east France on September 29th. He had been stabbed around fifteen times and the sixty-year-old succumbed to his injuries two days later.
Vidadi Isgandarli, a former prosecutor, had been living in France since 2017 after fleeing Azerbaijan and initially seeking refuge in Georgia. He regularly posted videos in which he spoke directly to the camera, condemning the “dictatorial regime” of Ilham Aliyev, who has led the Caucasus state since 2003. The activist, whose YouTube account boasts nearly 50,000 subscribers, was a well-known figure in his home country.
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“He was involved in politics all his life. We met in 2010 in Göyçay, the town where we both grew up. He was already organising protests against Aliyev,” recalls Mahammad Mirzali, another opponent of the Baku regime who is also in exile in France.
Some within the Azerbaijani opposition disapproved of Isgandarli's tone, believing it harmed their cause. On social media he would sometimes hurl harsh insults at his political opponents. “You have to understand the psychological pressure - threats, intimidation… I, too, at one point, almost lost my mind,” Mahammad Mirzali, who has himself survived several assassination attempts, says in his fellow exile's defence.
Threats against opponents
So what precisely happened on the morning of Sunday 29th September at Vidadi Isgandarli's home in Mulhouse? What we know so far comes via accounts from his neighbours, who were alerted by the sound of shouting, and from his brother, whom he managed to call for help. According to these initial reports, three masked men entered Isgandarli's home at around 6am and attacked him with knives. The opposition figure is said to have tried to defend himself, and his assailants fled when the commotion alerted the neighbourhood.
His body is currently undergoing a post-mortem examination, according to a judicial source who spoke to Mediapart, with the various examinations expected to take a week in total. An immediate murder investigation has been launched.
While it is clearly too early to be certain, the possibility of this having been a political assassination is a serious working theory. In the weeks before he was stabbed, Vidadi Isgandarli had been explicitly and repeatedly threatened by an Azerbaijani state media outlet, the Iki Sahil newspaper. Founded by the state oil company SOCAR, the paper has adopted the mission of being “at the forefront of promoting the ideas of Heydar Aliyev” - father of the current president Ilham Aliyev - who himself was head of state for ten years from 1993 to 2003.
In an article published on 10th September, the activist living in Mulhouse was described as a “traitor”, one of the “most active elements” of a group of opponents “engaged in anti-national activities” and against whom “serious measures [have to be] taken”. The “punishment” for “traitors” was “very severe”, the state outlet added. A week later, he was again named in a list of “traitors” and “anti-national elements” supposedly funded by the “Armenian lobby”.
The war in Karabakh has given [President Aliyev] a form of legitimacy that allows him to do as he pleases, including suppressing dissent both at home and abroad.
Tracking down opposition figures who have sought refuge abroad is indeed said to be among the priorities of Baku’s security and intelligence services. “The identification, location and, if necessary, intimidation” of these activists is allegedly coordinated from the Azerbaijani capital by senior officials from the State Security Service (DTX) and Foreign Intelligence Service (XKX), according to the website Intelligence Online in March 2024. This followed investigations carried out by France's domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI, into the issue.
Political scientist Bayram Balci says this hunting down of opponents is taking place at the same time as Ilham Aliyev’s regime becomes yet more hardline. “This is a fairly authoritarian regime, comparable to those in other post-Soviet countries such as Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan, but it has become even more so after the 2023 war in Nagorno-Karabakh,” the researcher told Mediapart, referring to the conflict with neighbour Armenia. “President Aliyev emerged from it stronger, becoming a sort of national hero for reclaiming Karabakh, and this victory gave him, in the eyes of Azerbaijanis, a kind of legitimacy that allows him to do whatever he wants, including repressing opponents both domestically and abroad.”
A 'chilling' situation
Another reason for suspecting the potential involvement of Baku over the murder of Vidadi Isgandarli is that there are precedents for this kind of action. Mahammad Mirzali, the activist cited earlier who has also sought refuge in France, survived two assassination attempts at Nantes in 2020 and 2021, one of which involved a knife attack by six men. The opposition figure, whose YouTube channel 'Made in Azerbaijan' has 300,000 followers, still bears the scars, including long cuts to his arms. French police thwarted what was likely a third assassination attempt in 2022, arresting two men who had entered Mahammad Mirzali’s address into their GPS and who were carrying a firearm along with a photo of him.
We need the French government to speak up, otherwise Azerbaijan will continue its attacks.
The young man now firmly believes that his friend Vidadi Isgandarli was killed on the orders of the Azerbaijani government. “It's the same methods. Masked men who come and say nothing, not a word. They don’t talk, so that you can't tell whether they speak Arabic, Chechen, Azerbaijani...” the activist told Mediapart.
Since Vidadi Isgandarli's murder, and despite the increased police protection he has been given, Mahammad Mirzali says he lives in constant fear. “I’m scared. I’m really scared. I live shut inside my home; I don’t feel safe,” he declares.
His lawyer, Henri Carpentier, goes further. “If it's confirmed that Mr Isgandarli’s murder was politically motivated, it means that people who have been granted asylum in France, under the protection of the French Republic, are not in reality protected,” he told Mediapart. “If this political connection is proven, it's a chilling situation: it would mean that Baku can send death squads across our borders to eliminate people whose only crime is telling the truth or opposing the regime. It’s terrifying.”
France's curious silence
Faced with this “terrifying” scenario, the French state remains strangely quiet and has made no statement or declaration. When approached by Mediapart, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment, citing the “ongoing judicial investigation”. The Élysée has also remained silent, despite Emmanuel Macron’s previous tough stance towards other states engaging in destabilisation efforts on French soil – Russia being the prime example.
This lack of reaction does not surprise Mahammad Mirzali: “I’ve been receiving threats for four years. Recently, almost every week, Azerbaijani television airs my photo alongside threats. I don’t hear anything from France's diplomats,” he says, bitterly. “We need the French government to speak up, otherwise Azerbaijan will continue its attacks.”
The Élysée's silence regarding Baku's actions has begun to irritate other state services, who do not understand why Paris is not being more vocal. Ever since France expressed its support for Armenia during the war against Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijani secret services have not held back from targeting France: through online disinformation campaigns, particularly in the lead-up to this summer's Olympic Games in Paris, and attempts to exploit and amplify unrest in New Caledonia.
“Only a few of us have very comprehensive files proving all of this. But we don’t understand why the Élysée is holding back,” notes one senior official who has worked on these issues. For Mahammad Mirzali, the explanation is simple: it comes down to Paris’s commercial interests, and in particular its interest in Baku's gas exports.
Whatever the reason, this diplomatic silence cannot last forever: the COP29 climate conference opens in Baku on November 11th. The French government will have to decide whether or not to send representatives – and if so, what message they will deliver to Ilham Aliyev.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter