Fikret Huseynli on his 6-month "imprisonment" in Ukraine

Baku/19.04.18/Turan: "I managed to leave Ukraine through the land border. It was a compulsory measure, because they planned to arrest me at the Kiev airport," journalist Fikret Huseynli, who was granted refuge and citizenship of the Netherlands several years ago, told in an interview with Voice of America.

He recalled that the Kiev prosecutor's office sabotaged the court's decision to return his passport and tried in every possible way to detain him in Kiev in order to fulfill the order from Baku on the extradition of the journalist to Azerbaijan. "On April 16, the consul of the Embassy of the Netherlands and three more diplomats of the country, representatives of the EU mission in Kiev, local human rights activists and journalists attended the regular session of the court.

The judge again refused to comply with the requirements of the prosecutor's office, after which the prosecutor wanted to take my passport from the judge. But I snatched it and said that the court decided to return it to me," the journalist said. The diplomats present in the hall told Huseynli that according to the order of the prosecutor's office, he was arrested when trying to leave the country.

Leaving the courtroom, Huseynli noticed the shadowing, and soon the unknown person phoned him from the closed room, threatening that Ukraine would become his grave. The journalist appealed to the representatives of the United States and the European Union, asking for help. "After that, they explained to me how to leave Ukraine," Huseynli said. Without revealing the details, he said that he crossed one of the checkpoints of the country on its land border. He stressed that the border crossing was legal. "For violation of the period of stay in the country, I paid a fine of 25 euros and put a stamp on my passport," he said. "Having reached Berlin, I thanked the people who helped me and went home to Amsterdam," Huseynli said.

When asked who helped him to leave Ukraine, the journalist only answered that they were "very high-ranking people", and he was asked not to give names. Referring to his 6-month detention in Ukraine, Huseynli said that he intends to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights with a complaint about the actions of the prosecutor's office. The journalist expressed his gratitude to the representative of international organizations, the public of Ukraine, the US embassies, the Netherlands and the European Union in Kiev, Ukrainian deputies for their support. "Thanks to their help and support, I was able to overcome injustice by lawful means," the journalist concluded.

* Huseynli was detained on October 14, 2017 when flying from Kiev to Dusseldorf on the basis of Azerbaijan's request through Interpol. In Azerbaijan he is accused of fraud and illegal crossing borders. On October 18, 2017 Borispol City Court of Ukraine arrested him for 18 days to consider the issue of his extradition to Azerbaijan. On October 27 Lukyanovka court of Kiev released Huseynli on bail of the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Mikola Knyazhitsky, and public figure Boris Zakharov. At the same time, the court rejected the state prosecutor's request to extradite Huseynli to Azerbaijan. The Kiev prosecutor's office filed an appeal against the release of Huseynli, demanding his arrest. The trial began on January 17, but was postponed four times. On February 13, the court refused extradition.

Nevertheless, on March 16 the prosecutor's office petitioned for an extension of the extradition examination for another two months. However, the Kiev Pechora Court gave the time only until April 2. At the end of this period, the court decided to stop the extradition check and allow Huseynli leave the country. -03B-