BAKU - A top internal affairs officer in Azerbaijan admitted to accepting 500,000 dollars (388,000 euros) in bribes to cover for police involved in a series of high-profile kidnappings and murders, prosecutors and security officials said Wednesday.
Internal affairs deputy chief Kamil Sadraddinov "turned himself in and confessed and promised to cooperate with the investigation," the security ministry and prosecutor's office said in a joint statement.
A number of top interior ministry officers were fired last month after the bust of a kidnapping and murder ring implicated several senior government officials.
The security ministry said the ring had been behind a number of high profile kidnappings, including that of a prosecutor,d the sons of a casino owner, a top state oil company executive, a storeowner, a restaurant owner and the head of an insurance company.
The ministry also implicated them in the contract assassinations of the vice president of Azerbaijan's football federation, a top ranking prosecutor and a drug control officer.
Wednesday's statement said Sadraddinov had at one time been the direct superior of the interior ministry official accused of heading the ring and accepted bribes paid out of ransom money to keep quiet about the illegal operation.
04/06/2005 18:29 GMT