The Baku Court of Grave Crimes has sentenced Mehman Aliyev, a member of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan, to imprisonment in a drug case. The defense intends to appeal his sentence.
On May 22, police officers in Shirvan attempted to detain Ali Isayev, Mehman Aliyev’s cousin. Aliyev released a video recording of the attempted detention and an audio recording of telephone conversations with the police, who demanded that the video be deleted.
Today, the Baku Court of Grave Crimes announced the verdict for Mehman Aliyev, his lawyer Fakhraddin Mehdiyev told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent. The court found Aliyev guilty under Article 234.4.3 (Illegal manufacture, production, acquisition, storage, transportation, transfer or sale of narcotic drugs, in large quantities) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan and sentenced him to 5 years in prison. It should be noted that the maximum penalty under this article is 12 years in prison.
“Mehman Aliyev denied the charges in his final statement. He stated that he was arrested for distributing a video of police officers trying to detain his relative Ali Isayev, who was shouting that they wanted to falsely accuse him of a drug crime. Mehman Aliyev began filming what was happening. Mehman Aliyev suggested that law enforcement officers conduct a personal search of Isayev in front of a video camera, but the plainclothes law enforcement officers continued to try to forcibly put Ali in a car, and the latter cut himself. After that, the police demanded that Mehman Aliyev delete the video. But my client refused to do so. As a result, Aliyev and Isayev were arrested on charges of illegal drug trafficking, but on different cases,” said lawyer Mehdiyev.
He emphasized that, apart from the testimony of the police officers themselves, no reliable evidence of Aliyev’s involvement in the drug crime was presented. “Mehman Aliyev was accused of selling drugs on a large scale. However, even formal evidence that he was selling drugs was not presented. The discovery of drugs, which, according to Aliyev, were planted on him by the police themselves, does not mean that he was selling drugs. The investigation did not find scales on him, did not identify his potential client base, – the lawyer noted. He specified that an appeal would be filed against the verdict. An employee of the Baku Court of Grave Crimes confirmed that Aliyev had been sentenced. Representatives of the prosecution were not available for comment.