Today a preliminary court hearing took place in the Binagadi District Court under the chairmanship of Judge Maarif Kazimov on a lawsuit filed by “ANS” Company Group against “Yeni Musavat” newspaper for defense of business reputation and the payment for moral damages.”
According to the plaintiff’s representative Sevda Maharramova, false information was published in an article subtitled “Military Minister Against Head of Administration” that run in “Yeni Musavat” Newspaper on 13 May 2008. “False information was written in the article, and this damaged the business image of ANS,” said Sevda Maharramova. She asked the court to institute a 50,000 (fifty thousand) AZN fine against “Yeni Musavat” newspaper and a 10, 000 (ten thousand) AZN against the author of the article Suleyman Alasgarli. This money is to be transferred to ANS account. Maharramova also asked for a refutation to be published on the same page of the newspaper in the same font.
“Yeni Musavat” newspaper’s representative Azer Aykhan claimed that the lawsuit was groundless and introduced a written motion to the court to dismiss the case. “We didn’t have any ill will towards ANS and at the end of the article we stated that we were ready to publish ANS’s opinion,” he said.
After a short deliberation, Judge M. Kazimov adopted a decision to accept the case for consideration and scheduled the next hearing for 14 July at 10:00 am.