32 Facts About Ilham Aliyev

1.

Ilham Heydar oghlu Aliyev is the fourth president of Azerbaijan, serving in the post since 31 October 2003.

2.

The son and second child of the former Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev, Ilham Aliyev became president of Azerbaijan in 2003 following his father's death, in an election defined by election fraud.

3.

Ilham Aliyev's family have enriched themselves through their ties to state-run businesses.

4.

Ilham Aliyev was named Corruption's 'Person of the Year' by Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project in 2012.

5.

Ilham Aliyev is the son of Heydar Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan from 1993 to 2003.

6.

In 1977, Ilham Aliyev entered the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and in 1982, continued his education as a postgraduate.

7.

Since 1997, Ilham Aliyev is the president of the National Olympic Committee of Azerbaijan.

8.

In 1999, Ilham Aliyev was elected as the deputy chair of the ruling party New Azerbaijan Party and in 2001, he was elected to the post of first deputy chair at the Second Congress of the Party.

9.

In 1995, Ilham Aliyev was elected to the Parliament of Republic of Azerbaijan; later he became president of the National Olympic Committee.

10.

From 2001 to 2003, Ilham Aliyev was head of the Azerbaijani delegation to Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

11.

Ilham Aliyev attended and addressed the general debates of the 59th, 65th and 72 sessions of the UN General Assembly.

12.

Ilham Aliyev expanded cooperation with the European Union during his presidency, using caviar diplomacy as a controversial technique of persuading European officials to support Azerbaijani projects.

13.

On 6 February 2017, Ilham Aliyev visited Brussels, the capital of the EU, where he paid visits to High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, with the President of the European Council, Commission President, and the Commissioner for Energy Union.

14.

On 16 February 2005 Ilham Aliyev participated in the ceremony of opening the Year of Azerbaijan in Russia.

15.

Ilham Aliyev met with Russian and Iranian leaders in Baku in 2016 to discuss terrorism, transnational organized crime, arms smuggling and drug trafficking in the region.

16.

Ilham Aliyev introduced Azerbaijan's first IPAP to NATO in Brussels on 19 May 2014.

17.

On 10 January 2017 Ilham Aliyev announced 2017 as the year of Islamic Solidarity and allocated funds to organize the related events.

18.

In 2014 and 2015, Ilham Aliyev allocated funds from Presidential Reserve Fund multiple time towards efforts to promote "interreligious dialogue and tolerance" and to restore monuments in Azerbaijan.

19.

Ilham Aliyev is the president of the National Olympic Committee since 1997.

20.

Ilham Aliyev attended various opening and award ceremonies where he awarded the winning prizes.

21.

The Ilham Aliyev family have enriched themselves through their ties to state-run businesses.

22.

The 2021 Pandora Papers leaks showed that the Ilham Aliyev family built vast offshore network to hide their money.

23.

When registering the companies, Ilham Aliyev's daughters indicated property worth about $6 million.

24.

Ilham Aliyev was conditionally released in May 2016, in 2020 she was still subject to a travel ban and had been unable to leave the country despite numerous applications to do so.

25.

Ilham Aliyev was included on a list of figures accused of accepting bribes of 1,000,000$ USD from MP candidates to guarantee their "election win" and inclusion to the parliament.

26.

In 2017, the Ilham Aliyev family was implicated in the Azerbaijani laundromat scandal, which was a complex money-laundering scheme to pay off prominent European politicians to deflect criticism of Ilham Aliyev and promote a positive image of his regime.

27.

Ilham Aliyev declared that "we need to finish with the 'fifth column" and the Popular Front "worse than the Armenians".

28.

In 2012, Ilham Aliyev convinced the government of Hungary to transfer convicted murderer Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan to complete the rest of his prison term.

29.

Ilham Aliyev married Mehriban Aliyeva in Baku on 22 January 1983.

30.

Ilham Aliyev is fluent in Azerbaijani, English, French, Russian and Turkish.

31.

Ilham Aliyev's wife is the first Vice President of Azerbaijan.

32.

Ilham Aliyev has received honorary degrees from universities from the following states: Turkmenistan, Belarus, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania, Jordan, Hungary, Azerbaijan, and South Korea.