An Azeri court has sentenced a former health minister to 11 years in prison for bribery, forgery and embezzling $30m worth of state funds in a trial he described as politically motivated.
Ali Insanov, who is still to face attempted coup charges in a separate trial, described the verdict as a "victory of a rotten policy".
Insanov was arrested three weeks before parliamentary polls in November 2005, along with 11 other people accused of backing an exiled opposition leader in a conspiracy to topple Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan's president.
Talking to journalists at the court, he said: "As about my health, I feel well and have no plans to die, but this regime is capable on anything."
The court also decided to confiscate property belonging to Insanov worth more than $17 million.
Farhad Aliyev, a former economy minister, his brother Rafik – former head of the state company Azpetrol - and some other officials arrested along with Insanov are also in prison facing similar charges.
Political analysts say the biggest threat to Aliyev, the first dynastic leader to emerge in the former Soviet Union, lies within the nation's secretive and fractious elite rather than in a relatively weak political opposition.