On May 29, hearing on the case of Facebook activist Omar Mammadov, who is charged with illegal drug dealing, continued in Baku Court on Grave Crimes. The process was chaired by Judge Eldar Mikayilov.
The lawyers filed a motion for including several documents into the case. They also presented excerpts from several court verdicts in which the person by name Elnur Maharramov was involved as a circumstantial witness.
Lawyers also filed motion for summoning Omar Mammadov’s father Elyar Mammadov to the court. They justified the request with the fact that Elyar Mammadov had been called to the Interior Ministry’s Main Department for Combating Organized Crimes 2 days before his son’s detention and was demanded through pressure that Omar Mammadov’s stop his activity on Facebook.
Defense also filed motion for summoning the employees of Main Department for Combating Organized Crimes who questioned Mammadov and his father to testify as witnesses.
The judge granted only the motion about inclusion of documents into the case.
Then Ilkin Alakbarov, senior operative of the Main Drug Enforcement Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was questioned. He was one of the officers who detained Mammadov when he was coming out of a dental clinic near the Narimanov metro station.
According to him, Mammadov himself admitted possessing drugs and did not resist arrest. The defendant claims that Alakbarov planted drugs on him.
Alakbarov could not give a clear answer to the question from lawyers as to what was stated in the “operative information” which was the ground for Mammadov’s detention. Lawyer Khalid Bagirov reminded that the head of the operative group had written in the case materials that Mammadov was ‘selling’ narcotics.
The process will continue on June 6 at 4 pm.
Background: Omar Mammadov is a member of Civil Solidarity party and the head of the “Akhin” (Flow) youth movement. After his arrest he re-joined NIDA movement. Mammadov was active user of social networks. Notably he was one of the admin of the Facebook Page “Exclusives from AzTV” which shared cartoons, photo collage, and comments making fun of the officials’ mistakes. In January of 2014 he was arrested on charge of drug possession.