Court of Appeal Upheld Editor of Khural in Jail (updated)

Baku Court of Appeal on May 13 rejected the appeal of the editor of the newspaper Khural Avaz Avaz Zeynally against the decision of the Baku Court of Grave Crimes and upheld the verdict.

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 the Criminal Code and sentenced him to nine years in prison.

Zeynally was arrested in October 2011 on the complaint of former MP Guler Ahmadova, which herself is now under arrest for fraud. During the trial, the allegations were not substantiated and virtually all of the defense's arguments were rejected.

Lawyer Elchin Sadigov, commenting for Turan the appellate court’s decision, called it unfair and illegal.

According to him, the judicial structure was not entitled to consider the appeal because the court was biased. It is these judges that during the preliminary investigation dismissed the appeal against the decision to carry out searches in the office, apartment and car of Zeynally. In addition, the appellate court did not hold re-trial.

The need for this was explained with the fact that during the trial court neither Akhmedova, nor a number of other witnesses answered the questions of the defense.

Sadigov said that the decision of the Court of Appeal will be appealed to the Supreme Court. At the same time, a complaint will be sent to the European Court of Human Rights.

Zeynally himself said at the trial that he was arrested for political order and is a victim of free speech.

At the same time, he expressed his conviction that "someday those who fabricated his case will look from this iron cage and beg for mercy." -06B-