Economist Farid Mehralizade rejected all charges in the Abzas Media case in court, calling them politically motivated. The judge restricted the defendants’ right to ask questions to the witness; after the defendants’ protest, the hearing was interrupted and postponed indefinitely.
Six employees of the Abzas Media online publication (Ulvi Hasanli, Sevinj Vagifgizi, Mohammed Kekalov, Nargiz Absalamova, Hafiz Babali and Elnara Gasimova) were arrested on charges of currency smuggling due to 40 thousand euros found in the editorial office. Economist Farid Mehralizade was also subsequently arrested in the Abzas Media case. In mid-August, all defendants in the case were charged with new economic crimes under seven articles of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. The preliminary investigation was completed on September 10.
The trial of Abzas Media continued today in the Baku Court of Grave Crimes. The hearing heard the testimony of the last defendant, economic observer of Radio Azadlig* Farid Mehralizade.
Farid Mehralizade stated that there were “no grounds and no evidence” in the case to bring him to criminal responsibility. He called on the prosecutor to explain on what grounds the charges were brought against him, but Judge Rasim Sadikhov said that “the question is withdrawn” since, according to the Criminal Procedure Code, the defendant cannot ask questions to the state prosecutor.
The defendant then made a speech before the court. “To prove the political motives of my arrest, I will start from the very beginning, from the moment of my detention. In fact, it was not an arrest, but rather a kidnapping. On May 30 last year, in the morning, when I was going to work, 10 people in black clothes and black masks attacked me. They grabbed me, put handcuffs on me, and a bag over my head, as if it was an operation to detain some kind of criminal authority. They put me in a car and hit me on the head from the right and left. They took me to some building and beat me there too, saying: “You had a big mouth”, “You talked too much”, “Didn’t you know that when you have a big mouth, everything ends like this?” This is obvious evidence of my persecution for expressing an opinion. At the same time, the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a message that I was allegedly “invited” to the police,” Mehralizade said. According to him, the bag was removed from his head only when he was brought to the Baku police headquarters. “I still don’t know which agency detained me. When I was being handed over to the Baku police, my abductors told them: “Give us back the handcuffs and the bag,” and they changed the handcuffs and the bag on my head. The policeman who accompanied me to the investigator asked me: “Which agency detained you?” This is evidence that the scenario for my arrest was drawn up elsewhere, and the police were assigned the role of executing a political order. My lawyer was not allowed to see me at the Baku police headquarters. He was allowed in in the evening, when the initial investigative actions were completed. When I was being taken to the temporary detention facility, one officer said to me: “You are a young man, you should have gotten involved with Radio Azadlyg*.” And this became yet another confirmation that the charge of “smuggling” against me was fabricated. It is interesting that the basis for my detention as a suspect was some “operational information from a trustworthy source.” And the whole point is that the order for my arrest was received urgently and they did not even have time to collect “evidence” against me during the investigation of the Abzas Media case, – Mehralizade continued.
He named his criticism of the government in analytical materials on “Radio Azadlig”* and the publication of statistics reflecting the real economic situation in the country as the real reason for his arrest. Mehralizade noted that he had nothing to do with Abzas Media, and only gave comments to this publication a few times.
“I didn’t even know where their editorial office was located. The investigation even invented a “position” for me in the editorial office, “expert economist”, although there are no such positions in the media of Azerbaijan, journalists simply take comments from experts and no one provides them with monetary compensation,” – Mehralizade said.
He called the investigation’s attempt to present all the accused as an “organized group” on the grounds that they all used the Signal messenger absurd. At the end of his speech, Mehralizade drew attention to the approaching 150th anniversary of the national press in Azerbaijan, founded by educator Hasan bey Zardabi. “Independent media in Azerbaijan have survived during this time thanks to such principled and professional people, from Hasan bey Zardabi to Sevinj Vagifgizi and Hafiz Babali (both are defendants in this case, – note by “Caucasian Knot”). Neither reactionary laws nor politically motivated arrests can hinder free voices. Politically motivated arrests can bring political dividends to some people only in the short term, but it is impossible to silence independent media in general,” Mehralizade said.