An Azerbaijani court has sentenced popular TikTok influencer Ilduze Hajiyeva to five years and two months in prison over a fatal car crash in Baku.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hajiyeva, known online to her followers as “Arzum 9999”, was convicted of violating traffic safety regulations causing death, and illegally leaving the scene of an accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Khazar District Court also stripped her of her driving licence for two and a half years following the trial, which concluded on 2 July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prosecution argued that on 27 June last year, Hajiyeva was driving a Changan vehicle in the Mardakan suburb of Baku when she made an unsignalled left turn, colliding with an overtaking Mercedes-Benz driven by 29-year-old Amal Melikov.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Melikov’s vehicle overturned and struck a roadside barrier. He died at the scene, while his wife, Senuber Muradova, suffered severe head injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prosecution lawyers alleged that Hajiyeva failed to call emergency services and fled the scene shortly after the crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hajiyeva’s defence lawyers, Hikmet Aliyev and Farid Hasanov, disputed the prosecution’s version of events and requested a reinvestigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They argued that the official sketch of the accident scene was inaccurate and requested mobile network data to verify if listed witnesses were actually present. The court rejected these motions, stating there was already sufficient evidence to reach a verdict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aliyev told reporters that Hajiyeva did not flee, but was taken to hospital by a bystander after fainting from shock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I have maintained my innocence since day one,” Hajiyeva told the court in her final address. “If someone passes me at high speed and crashes, why should I be held responsible?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The verdict has sparked intense debate on Azerbaijani social media regarding speed limits and road safety laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Road safety expert Tural Yusifov noted that under local legislation, a driver turning left must yield to oncoming traffic, but vehicles behind are only permitted to overtake on the right if the lead car has already signalled a left turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the victim’s family has denied online rumours that they demanded a 100,000 manat (\u00a345,000) settlement from the influencer’s family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Melikov’s father-in-law, Firdovsi Muradov, said they only requested 60,000 US dollars (\u00a347,000) to cover urgent neurosurgical treatment for Muradova in Turkey. The court rejected this financial claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both sides have indicated they may appeal, with Melikov’s family seeking a harsher sentence, while Hajiyeva’s defence team is expected to challenge the conviction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An Azerbaijani court has sentenced popular TikTok influencer Ilduze Hajiyeva to five years and two months in prison over a fatal car crash in Baku. Hajiyeva, known online to her followers as “Arzum 9999”, was convicted of violating traffic safety regulations causing death, and illegally leaving the scene of an accident. The Khazar District Court […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":31679,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1047],"class_list":["post-31677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-feed","tag-editor"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31680,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31677\/revisions\/31680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}