Beaten to death: Baku says post-mortems contradict Russia’s claim in deaths of Azerbaijani brothers

Two Azerbaijani men who died in Russian custody last week were beaten to death, according to forensic officials in Baku, deepening diplomatic tensions between Azerbaijan and Russia.

Fresh autopsies conducted in Baku on brothers Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov have revealed that both men died from severe beatings, contradicting Russian claims that at least one of them died of heart failure, Azerbaijani forensic officials said on Tuesday.

The Safarov brothers were among six ethnic Azerbaijanis detained in Yekaterinburg last week during raids by Russian investigators probing unsolved crimes. Russian authorities had initially attributed Ziyaddin’s death to heart failure and offered no official explanation for Huseyn's death.

Adalat Hasanov, head of forensic examination at Azerbaijan's Health Ministry, said the post-mortems in Baku revealed "post-traumatic shock" as the cause of death in both cases. Ziyaddin's body showed multiple fractures, all ribs broken, and head trauma consistent with blunt force injury. Huseyn also suffered fatal injuries consistent with beatings, Hasanov added.

He further stated that Russian authorities had removed all internal organs during their autopsies — a move Baku interprets as a possible attempt to conceal the true cause of death.

The case has intensified diplomatic fallout. Azerbaijan’s ambassador was summoned to Moscow on Tuesday over what the Russian Foreign Ministry described as "unfriendly actions" and the “illegal detention” of two Sputnik journalists in Baku. The journalists were arrested as part of an investigation into alleged illegal funding of the Russian state-backed news agency.

Azerbaijan has accused Russian police of extrajudicial killings based on ethnic targeting — an allegation Russia has denied. Moscow maintains that all six individuals detained during the Yekaterinburg raids were Russian citizens.

As the diplomatic row deepens, both sides continue to trade accusations, marking a rare public rift between the two countries.

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