As we reported, Ramiz Mehdiyev, the former head of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan (PA), who played an important role in the country's political elite for many years, has been arrested.
Musavat.com presents the dossier of Ramiz Mehdiyev:
Ramiz Anvar oghlu Mehdiyev was born on April 17, 1938, in Baku. He graduated from the Baku Maritime School in 1957 and from the Faculty of History of Azerbaijan State University (currently Baku State University) in 1966. In 1968, he entered the postgraduate course at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov and defended his candidate of philosophical sciences degree in 1972.
Starting his political career in student youth organizations, Mehdiyev held leadership positions in the Azerbaijan LKGI Nakhchivan Regional Committee at the end of the 1960s. In the 1970s, he worked as a teacher in the Department of Scientific Communism and later held various positions in the apparatus of the Azerbaijan Communist Party Central Committee.
In 1978, Mehdiyev was elected first secretary of the District Committee named after 26 Baku Commissars; in the 1980s, he served as head of the Department of Science and Education Institutions and later as head of the Organization-Party Work Department. At that time, he was also known for actively engaging in the promotion of atheism in Azerbaijan.
In 1983, Mehdiyev was elected secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party Central Committee; in 1988, he was dismissed from his position and sent to the Academy of Sciences. He was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet in two convocations between 1980 and 1990. In 1994–1995, he worked as a department head in the Presidential Executive Office.
From 1995 to 2019, Ramiz Mehdiyev served as the head of the Presidential Administration and was considered one of the key figures in the preparation and implementation of the country’s political decisions. After leaving this position in 2019, he was elected president of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, but resigned in 2022.
A longtime member of the New Azerbaijan Party, Mehdiyev also chaired the Commission on Pardon Issues under the President and was represented in the party’s Management Board.