At Journalist Mustafa Hajibeyli�s Trial, "Evidence" Confused

Baku / 20.02.19 / Turan: The Baku Grave Crimes Court on February 19, under the chairmanship of Judge Sabuhi Huseynov, continued the trial on the case of Mustafa Hajibeyli, editor-in-chief of the bastainfo.com website.

* On July 9, the Prosecutor General"s Office opened a criminal case on the dissemination to the Internet of "false information" and "illegal appeals" in connection with the attempt on the head of Ganja Elmar Veliyev and the energy blackout in Mingachevir when almost all of Azerbaijan was left without power supply.

After that, the prosecutor's office appealed to the Ministry of Communications to block the sites "Bastainfo.com", "criminalaz.com", "topxeber.az" and "fia.az".

At first, Hajibeyli passed as a witness. However, on November 30, he was transferred to the status of the accused. In particular, he was charged under the Criminal Code: 281.2 (appeals against the state), 309.2 (abuse of office) and 313 (official forgery).

Regarding the editor, a preventive measure was chosen in the form of a program under police supervision. He denies all charges.

At a meeting on February 19, the court rejected Hajibeyli"s motion to keep a video and audio recording of the process.

Further, the testimony of witnesses was heard - Zulfiya Babayeva and Ilaha Khalidova, who stated that they did not have a permanent job. Both women said that after reading the articles on the website, they were excited and therefore appealed to the prosecutor's office.

Responding to questions from Hajibeyli and lawyer Osman Kazimov, the witnesses said they were alarmed by the article about the attempted assassination of the former head of Ganja, Elmar Veliyev. However, they could not recall a single sentence from the mentioned articles that excited them so much.

"It was written about the fall of Elmar Veliyev. There was a call for unrest, so I was scared, " said Babayeva.

At the same time, Hajibeyli indicated that the article "The Fall of Elmar Veliyev" was sent for examination. However, the expert concluded that there was no violation of the law in the article and it was not included in the charge.

"Apparently, those who instructed the witnesses did not know that the article "The Fall of Elmar Veliyev" is not the subject of judicial investigation," said Hajibeyli.

In turn, lawyer Kazimov offered to submit this article to the witness and let her call a sentence that contains "appeals against the state". However, Judge Huseynov did not accept this offer.

Hajibeyli proposed to exclude the testimony of witnesses from the list of evidence. The judge said that this issue could be considered at the stage of evaluation of evidence. At the same time, the judge suggested Hajibeyli speak briefly in the form of "questions and answers". However, Hajibeyli did not agree and said that he needed at least 1 hour to speak.

In this regard, his speech was postponed to the next meeting, which is scheduled for February 21. -06D-