The plaintiff’s representative Vagif Huseyn and Mazahir Israfilov, and the defendant Avaz Zeynalli participated in the hearing.
The judge did not fulfill the motion of the plaintiff’s representative Mazahir Israfilov to invite two representatives of Yeni Musavat newspaper as witnesses. Israfilov said in his speech that Avaz Zeynalli insulted Rauf Arifoglu using phrases like, “Rauf Arifoglu’s press is dishonorable,” “Rauf Arifoglu brought this disgrace to press,” and so on.
Avaz Zeynalli stated that he did not call Rauf Arifoglu “dishonorable.” “My expression ‘dishonorable’ does not refer to him,” said Zeynalli who then filed a motion to send the article in question for linguistic examination to determine whether it contains any insult elements. The judge said that the motion was fulfilled and postponed the hearing until they received responses from the examination.
Rauf Arifoglu claimed that he was insulted in the interview of Khural Newspaper Editor-in-Chief Avaz Zeynalli that was published in Milletim Newspaper on 3 June. In his lawsuit he asked to bring charges against the defendant under articles 147.1 (defamation) and 148 (insult) of the Criminal Code.
Yeni Musavat newspaper has been published since 1992 and operates as a daily newspaper. It has a large circulation.
Khural newspaper has been operating since October 2002 and is published as a weekly newspaper.