Guba Witnesses Do Not Come to Court

Witnesses for the prosecution regarding the events in the Guba region on March 1, 2011 did not come to court in Khachmaz region. This provoked an angry reaction by prosecutor Ahad Ibrahimov, who demanded that court staff produce the witnesses. His demand caused laughter and remarks that "no one wants to commit perjury."

The process was to start at 14:00. However, due to absence of witnesses, the trial was adjourned. It is noteworthy that among the witnesses, there are police officers.

Six people have been brought to justice, including members of the Guba TV channel "HayalTV" Vugar Gonagov and Zaur Guliyev. Earlier, three groups of people consisting of 24 people were convicted of the events.  Of them six people were sentenced to real terms in prison, the others were sentenced to probation. 

* On March 1, several thousand residents of Guba region (168 km north of Baku) rallied to demand the resignation of Rauf Khabibov, the Chief Executive of Guba region. The cause of the protests was a video on the Internet where he insulted the residents of the region. The protest turned into a riot, Khabibov’s villa was burned, and damage was caused to the building of the   executive power. The internal troops were deployed to the city. The next day Khabibov was dismissed from his post. —06B-