Afghan Mukhtarly Abducted by Georgian Security Officials?

Baku / 30.05.17 / Turan: The journalist Afghan Mukhtarly is charged under two articles of the criminal code, his lawyer Elchin Sadigov said.

Recall that the night before Mukhtarli was abducted by unknown people in Tbilisi, where he lived for the last three years. Only a day later it became known that Mukhtarly was brought to Baku and kept in the central department of the State Border Service (SBS).

The lawyer Elchin Sadigov met with him on the evening of May 30. He told Turan that Mukhtarly was detained as a suspect. He is charged under articles 318.1 (illegal crossing of the state border) and 206.1 (smuggling) of the Criminal Code.

"Mukhtarly said in his testimony that yesterday (May 29) around 6 p.m. he was forcibly put in a car of the Opel brand near the house where he lived. In the car his hands were tied behind him. He was beaten. He has bruises on his nose, under his right eye, in the middle of his forehead and on the left temple. He believes that they broke his left rib. After leaving Tbilisi, he had a sack on his head. When he said his heart hurt and he could not breathe, the sack was removed and his head was tied with a T-shirt and sealed with adhesive tape. For two hours he was transported in a car and transferred into another car in a deserted area. Then they changed the car one more time. "In the last cars, the people spoke in Azerbaijani," said the lawyer.

He was brought to the Azerbaijani frontier post and pocketed 10 thousand euros.

"Afghan Mukhtarly said he did not see this money and it did not belong to him. I petitioned to conduct a medical examination and request video from the surveillance cameras of the border post. Now he is detained as a suspect and tomorrow the court will consider the issue of choosing a preventive measure," Sadigov said.

Answering the journalists' questions, the lawyer said Mukhtarly had the impression that the persons who detained him looked like employees of the Georgian state bodies.

"Afghan said these people did not introduce themselves. But they looked like the security forces of Georgia," said the lawyer.

According to him, the arrest of the journalist is illegal and in fact these people themselves violated the border of Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Mukhtarly was given food and medicine brought by friends. He will spend the night in the 37th police station and tomorrow he will appear before the Sabail district court.

Mukhtarly was known as an investigative journalist and a civil activist. Fearing repression in 2014, he moved to Georgia. He criticized the Azerbaijani authorities in social networks on the Internet and held protests in front of the Azerbaijani embassy in Tbilisi. -03b06--