By Leo Chiu
Azerbaijan said it is launching a probe into the Russian police鈥檚 alleged torture and killing of two Azeri citizens during Friday鈥檚 raid in Yekaterinburg.
The Russian raid resulted in the deaths of Azeri citizens Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov, both around 60 years old and the arrest of many others over a cold murder case in 2002.
Baku鈥檚 prosecutor general, cited by the state media, said it has launched a criminal investigation into the alleged torture and killing of Azeri citizens by Russian law enforcement officers.
Baku claimed the victims鈥 bodies showed injuries induced by blunt objects, indicating the use of force by law enforcement agencies during their detention and transportation process that eventually led to their deaths.
The report said the 60-year-old Huseyn Safarov, an entrepreneur, was killed at around 3 p.m. inside the detention facility, while his brother, 55-year-old taxi driver Ziyaddin Safarov, was killed earlier in the same location earlier that day.
The report also claimed that other detainees, now recovering in Russian hospitals, were also subjected to torture and suffered injuries from assaults by law enforcement officers.
The incident has led to a new low in relations between Baku and Moscow.
On Sunday, Baku cancelled all Russian cultural events in the country and summoned a Russian diplomat in protest.
Later, Azeri law enforcement officers arrested journalists from the Baku office of Sputnik, a Russian state-owned propaganda agency.
Alleged footage of the detained staff from Sputnik circulating on the internet showed signs of potential torture at the hands of law enforcement officers.
The Kremlin denied any wrongdoing.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the raid in Yekaterinburg was lawful, and those arrested and detained were Russian citizens, according to an official readout from the ministry.
Moscow also summoned the Azeri ambassador and protested the arrests of Sputnik staff.
鈥淥n July 1, Azerbaijani Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Russia Rahman Mustafayev was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry. During a meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, a formal protest was delivered over Baku鈥檚 recent unfriendly steps 鈥 deliberate actions aimed at dismantling bilateral relations,鈥 the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, according to state media TASS.
Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow wants to maintain ties with Baku but did not apologize for the incident, per a TASS report.
Following the incident, the Russian Foreign Ministry also said it aims to maintain close ties with Baku鈥檚 rival Armenia after the latter severed ties with Moscow following the loss of the Karabakh region to Azerbaijan in late 2023.
It is unclear if the statement on Armenia is related to the latest fallout with Baku.