At the trial of the Abzas Media case, the request to mitigate the preventive measure for the defendants Hafiz Babala and Farid Mehralizade was denied, since they could abscond from justice.
Today, the lawyers of Hafiz Babala and Farid Mehralizade petitioned to change the preventive measure to house arrest. The defense motivated this by the fact that the names of their clients do not appear in any document, and not a single witness testified against them in court. The other defendants and their lawyers supported these petitions.
However, state prosecutor Rauf Malyshov opposed it, citing that the said individuals are accused “under several articles of the criminal code,” “can abscond from the court,” “and the trial is ongoing.” After that, the judge rejected the petitions.
On April 8, witness Egver Jafarov told the court that he worked as a translator at Abzas Media. According to Jafarov, during the investigation he was detained and his phone was confiscated, forcing him to provide the password to the security forces. On April 22, the defendants in the Abzas Media case demanded that the witness be re-examined.
At today’s trial, the defendant Sevinj Vagifgizi asked the witness Jafarov why his nearly five-hour interrogation “took so long.” “They asked questions, looked through my mobile phone, some of my statements were recorded incorrectly, they corrected them,” Jafarov answered, specifying that he was detained by force.
When asked what parts of Jafarov’s testimony were deleted at his insistence, the witness said that he had managed to exclude from the protocol the words that “Abzas Media was financed by Western donors.” The witness also said that the police did not allow him to contact his family and colleagues to report the detention. The judge then read out the testimony given during the preliminary investigation by witness Ayshan Muradova, who left Baku for Istanbul in April 2024. However, lawyers Vagifgizi and Gasanli insisted on hearing the witness’s testimony online, since during the investigation she had made accusations against their clients. In this regard, Judge Sadykhov noted the need to establish the whereabouts of the witness.