Elgiz Gahraman Speaks about Torture in MDCOC of Ministry of Internal Affairs

The Baku Court of Grave Crimes chaired by Azad Mejidov December 26 continued the trial of the activist of the movement NIDA Elgiz Gahraman accused of drug trafficking.

On the trial as additional witnesses at the request of the defense were presented Head of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (MDCOC) of MIA Kerim Alimardanov and the chief operations officer of this department Shahlar Jafarov.

Gahraman said that during 6 days in MDCOC after being detained on the orders of Alimardanov he was subjected to beatings and humiliation.

According to the young man, he was daily stripped and beaten, and forced to wash the floor in his underwear.

He said that after the arrest was taken to Alimardanov’s office in MDCOC.

It was here, according to the accused, he was forced to sign confessions under the ownership of drugs seized from him, as well as the links with the preacher Fethullah Gülen.

Alimardanov and Jafarov began to deny Gahraman’s statements. According to them, Gahraman was never brought to their offices.

However, the activist described the rooms of then MDCOC employees. “Kerim Alimardanov’s office has 9 phones. The table has a special place where to put the batons. There is also a video camera which filmed me. And Shahlar Jafarov also has baseball bats in his office,” said Gahraman.

Next the lawyers Namazly and Nemat Karimli petitioned the court to call the lawyer Ogtay Aliyev assigned to Gahraman after his arrest, to interrogate the expert who gave an opinion on the examination of the alleged drug seized from the activist and delivery to the court of the registration book with operational information of MDCOC.

The judge Mejidov granted only petition to call an expert. The other two were rejected.

The next meeting is scheduled for 5 January.

Namazly the lawyer told Turan the lawyer intended for Ogtay Aliyev also signed the protocol of personal search and a search at Gahraman’s apartment.

The defense questioned the participation of the lawyer in the search of Gahraman’s house. Gahraman himself was not there. And his brother was not familiarized with the people conducting the search.

As for calling the expert, then, according to Namazly, the defense takes interest in the methodology of determining the substances seized from Gahraman as drugs.

"On August 12 Gahraman was detained, and on the same day the expert concluded that the substance seized from him was heroin. How could the expert determine that?” continued Namazly.

Finally, the third application is request for the online data receipt book of registrations about the essence of the charges.

In the briefs of the criminal case there is only one thing saying that Gahraman traded drugs – it is operational information received in MDCOC. Even in the testimony ejected from Gahraman under torture he indicated that he "found" those drugs and wanted to use them "for personal use".

The law allows you to keep the anonymity of the source.

However, the defense believes the source could be heard in a closed session, or caused to come to the court with a covered face, so that he answered the defense questions on why he believed Gahraman was engaged in drug trafficking. -06D--