Consideration of Appeal of Zeynally Scheduled for May 13

In Baku Appeal Court on 3 May completed a preliminary hearing on the case of the editor of the Khural newspaper Avaz Zeynally. At the previous meeting on 1 May the defendant declined the judiciary under the chairmanship of Aflatun Gasimov.

Zeynally motivated the denial with the fact that these judges during the preliminary investigation had already rejected his application against the search of the apartment, office and car of the accused and therefore can not be impartial.

However, on 3 May, opening the session, the judge Gasimov said that the leadership of the Court of Appeal rejected the withdrawal.

The lawyer then requested to hold partly re-trial on the appeal. He justified this by saying that the trial court's main witness against Zeynally was the former MP Guler Akhmedova, who is under arrest on charges of fraud now. A number of other witnesses have not answered questions from defense either.

However, the judge rejected the request.

On March 12 Baku Court of Grave Crimes Court recognized Zeynally guilty under Articles 311.3.3 (bribery on a large scale), 311.4 (extortion by threats), 306 (non-enforcement of the judgment) and 213.1 (evasion of taxes in a significant amount of ) of the Criminal Code and sentenced him to nine years in prison.

Zeynally was arrested in October 2011 on the complaint of ex-MP Guler Akhmedova, who is now under arrest for fraud. -06B –