Azeri businessman murdered by former Azeri police chief in Istanbul
Çetin Aydın - ISTANBUL
Istanbul police nabbed the suspect, Gozal Damirov, hours after the murder.
An Azeri businessman has been murdered in Istanbul by a compatriot who had served as a police chief in Azerbaijan.
Businessman Etimat Ismailov met with former police chief and Col. Gozal Damirov at his office in Bakırköy district on the evening of Sept. 19.
According to police sources, the meeting ended with a fight over the debt of one of the men. Damirov shot Ismailov with one bullet to the head and another in his heart.
The businessman succumbed to his injuries at the hospital where he was transferred to after the shooting, while Damirov fled the scene.
Istanbul police detained Damirov in Beşiktaş district early Sept. 20. The gun that was suspected to have been used in the murder was also seized.
The businessman was the son of Ilyas Ismailov, who had served as Azerbaijan’s chief prosecutor and then justice minister before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Retired Col. Damirov had served as a provincial police chief in Azerbaijan in the early 1990s, before becoming the manager of a refrigerator factory in Baku.
Sources said that the former soldier, whose police interrogation began on Sept. 20, had investments in Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Etimat Ismailov
