Court of Appeal does not release Farid Mehralizade

The Baku Court of Appeal dismissed the complaint of economist Farid Mehralizade against his arrest, lawyer Javad Javadov told Turan.

The defense presented evidence to the court about the illegality of the arrest. "Farid himself also pointed out the lack of grounds for his arrest. He had no cooperation with the publication "Abzas Media". Unfortunately, the court did not take all this into account," the lawyer said.

According to him, at a subsequent stage, the defense will apply for change in the preventive measure to house arrest. Javadov also said that Mehralizade has no complaints about the conditions of detention.

*Mehralizade was detained on May 31 in the case of "Abzas Media". He was charged under Article 206.3.2 (smuggling by prior agreement of a group of persons).

On June 1, the Khatai district court arrested the economist for a period of 3 months and 20 days. Six journalists and media workers are under arrest in this case. Criminal cases against two other persons were separated into separate proceedings.