Sumgayit Regional Court has granted human rights defender Intigam Aliyev permission to travel abroad for a period of 10 days, the human rights defender’s son Najmin Kamil told the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS).
Intigam Aliyev was arrested in 2014. He was convicted on charges of tax evasion, misappropriation, illegal business, abuse of office and forgery and was sentenced to 7.5 years in jail by Baku Grave Crimes Court on April 22, 2015. His sentence was upheld by Baku Appeal Court on July 21, 2015 and later by the Supreme Court. Based on Prosecutor General Zakir Garalov’s petition submitted to the Supreme Court Plenum in March 2016, Intigam Aliyev’s sentence was commuted to a 5-year suspended sentence and he was released on March 28, 2016. However, the human rights defender was still under an international travel ban.
According to Najmin Kamil, Intigam Aliyev has left for Strasburg to attend an event organized by the Council of Europe on June 6-7. Najmin Kamil said Intigam Aliyev would deliver a speech at the opening of the conference on the problems faced by civil society in Council of Europe member states, which would also be attended by Council of Europe human rights commissioner, diplomats, experts and representatives of member states’ governments and civil societies.