An influential opponent of the Azerbaijani regime died on Tuesday, October 1, in Mulhouse, near the French-German border, after receiving around 20 stab wounds on Sunday. Vidadi Isgandarli, a 62-year-old former prosecutor who had been a political refugee in France since 2017, was allegedly attacked by three men at his home in the early hours of the morning, according to the initial findings of the murder investigation opened by the Mulhouse judicial police.

According to his brother Oktay, Isgandarli's screams alerted the neighbors and caused the assailants to flee. Still conscious, he managed to call his brother, who in turn alerted the police. He was able to give very few details before losing consciousness, having lost a lot of blood. A source from the Mulhouse prosecutor's office told Le Monde that the attack "took place between 5 and 6:30 in the morning. The neighborhood investigation found no witnesses, and surveillance camera footage has yet to be analyzed." As for the motive, it's "on the face of it political, but it's just one possibility among others."

The Azerbaijan embassy in France has not responded to questions about the murder.

The victim's relatives and Azerbaijani political opponents who have taken refuge in France see the murder as the work of the authoritarian regime in Baku. "Vidadi Isgandarli, like me, was the target of threats," explained 61-year-old Azerbaijani journalist Ganimat Zahid from Strasbourg. "I've known him since the late 1990s and we've remained very close. He was a prosecutor until the early 2000s, after which he resigned to become involved in the defense of human rights." Arrested in 2011 while demonstrating against Ilham Aliyev's regime, Isgandarli was sentenced to three years in prison by an Azerbaijani court. He was granted presidential amnesty in the middle of his sentence and continued his political activities, before emigrating to France with his family.

Becoming a blogger in France, he filled his YouTube channel (47,500 subscribers) with vindictive messages against the Azerbaijani president and his entourage. "I can't rule out the possibility that Vidadi was targeted because of the insults he made," noted Zahid, adding, "Which in no way justifies his murder. In any event, we're all on the list of opponents to be shot."

According to the journalist, Isgandarli was the fourth Azerbaijani opposition figure to be murdered in exile by the regime in the last four years. In 2021, Bayram Mammadov, Vuqar Rza and Huseyn Bakixanov were killed in Turkey, Belgium and Georgia respectively.

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