Court Trial against Seymour Hazy

On November 11 the Absheron district court scheduled a preliminary hearing on the criminal case against an employee of the newspaper Azadlig and the leader of the on-line program Azerbaijani Hour Seymour Hazy accused of hooliganism.

The defense considers unreasonable the Hazy custody since his arrest term expired on 29 October and was not extended.

Recall that Hazy was arrested August 29 in the village of Jeyranbatan. August 30 the press service of the Prosecutor General stated that Hazy hit a Baku resident Maharram Hasanov with a glass bottle on his head.

  The journalist was prosecuted under Article 221.3 (hooliganism committed with a weapon or using objects used as weapons) of the Criminal Code.

The conflict occurred due to the fact that Hasanov accused Hazy of contempt for him in social networks, and then pounced on him. The journalist was forced to be defensive and hit the assailant with what he was holding at the moment.

According to the lawyer Adil Ismailov, Hasanov at the confrontation could not intelligibly explain how Hazy insulted him in Facebook.

"This suggests that someone else opened Hasanov’s page and wrote Hazy," said the lawyer.

Note that Hasanov faces a maximum sentence of up to 1 year in prison, while Hazy may be sentenced from 3 to 7 years imprisonment. -03D06-