Court of Appeal fails to satisfy Anar Mammadli's complaint against illegal searches in his case

The day before, the Baku Court of Appeal considered the complaint of Anar Mammadli, head of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Education Centre, against the searches and seizures carried out in his flat and at the place of residence of the activist's parents.

The appeal filed by Mammadli, as well as his mother and sister, pointed to the illegality of the searches.

While the court decision only authorised entry into the flats and inspection, the police officers ‘actually conducted illegal searches and seizures’, the appeal said.

They seized phones, computers and all other electronic media, which contained personal information of both Mammadli and his relatives.

Besides, the law enforcers seized information about persons who cooperated with Anar Mammadli and passed information to prepare reports on election monitoring.

Mammadli also believes that these actions were committed for political reasons, with the purpose of persecution for preparation of election reports and human rights activities.

The appeal asked to recognise the searches as unlawful and to return the seized items.

The applicants also requested to recognise the violation of their rights guaranteed by Article 6 (right to fair trial), 8 (respect for private life), 10 (freedom of expression), 11 (freedom of association), 18 (limits on use of restrictions on rights) of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 1 (protection of property) of its Additional Protocol No. 1.

However, the appeal was left without satisfaction, lawyer Javad Javadov told Turan.

According to him, the said violations of the applicants' rights will be separately appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.

*Anar Mammadli was arrested on 30 April on charges of smuggling by conspiracy of a group of persons (Article 206.3.2 of the AR Criminal Code). Initially he was brought under the "Abzas Media" case.

Subsequently, his case was singled out for separate proceedings.

Numerous international organisations and the US State Department called on the Azerbaijani government to immediately release Anar Mammadli and other imprisoned journalists and activists.

It is worth recalling that over the past few months the criminal cases were initiated against 17 activists and journalists, 15 of them are in detention.