On April 17 the Baku Grave Crimes Court held another closed hearing in the case of Tolishy-Sado newspaper editor Hİlal Mammadov. Judge Azer Orujov presided over the hearing. In an interview with the IRFS after the hearing, journalist’s lawyer Anar Gasimli said that linguistic expert Almaz Rahimova, who gave the opinion on the articles written by Hilal Mammadov, attended the trial and answered questions.
“Ms. Rahimova noted that in his articles Hilal Mammadov voiced opinions against state authority and aimed at inciting national hostility. But she could not answer the question ‘what is state authority?’ The judge was obviously prejudiced: he excluded some of our questions to the expert. Today judges acted rather like public prosecutors” said Gasimli.
According to the other lawyer of the journalist, Ramiz Mammadov, computer forensic expert Mammad Ramazanov also testified at the hearing.
“All the data concerning Hilal Mammadov were analyzed and certain conclusions were drawn. We also cleared up the question as to whether there was an unauthorized access to the files in USB memory-stick belonging to Hilal Mammadov. The third forensic expert did not attend the hearing” said the lawyer an added that the next hearing will take place on April 24, at 10:30am.
Background: Journalist Hilal Mammadov is charged with illegal possession of drugs in large quantities (Article 234.4.3/Criminal Code), treason (Article 274/Criminal Code), and incitement of national, racial, social and religious hatred, hostility and ethnic discrimination (Article 283/Criminal Code).