Investigation Started against Doctors in O. Gyulalyev Case

Baku/26.01.21/Turan: Firuza Gyulalyeva, wife of the human rights activist Ogtay Gyulalyev, lawyer Fuad Agayev and director of the Turan news agency Mehman Aliyev were received by the prosecutor of the Nasimi district Hasan Hanifayev on January 25.

The meeting discussed issues related to the actions of doctors at the State Center for Clinical Medicine No. 1 and the private clinic Baku City Hospital, which led to serious consequences - O. Gyulalyev fell into a coma, to serious brain damage, which has caused the coma to this day.

The operation was carried out only 17 hours after the public signal and high-level instructions. Subsequently, several more operations were carried out in the Turkish hospitals Avrasiya and American Hospital. There, for a year, there was treatment with the assistance of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

The Gyulalyev family has repeatedly raised the issue of bringing doctors to justice, believing that the doctors' actions were deliberate and pursued the goal of physically eliminating Gyulalyev on some order.

This is the third meeting of O. Gyulalyev's representatives with the prosecutor Hanifayev. Previous meetings were held on July 4 and September 19, 2020.

At these meetings, it was indicated that despite the repeated appeals of Fuad Agayev, Ogtay Gyulalyev’s lawyer, to the investigation and prosecution authorities, since the end of 2019, he still has not received any answers to them, although the named bodies were obliged to notify him on the results of consideration of his petition and complaints as soon as possible.

The meeting on September 19 took place after Mehman Aliyev's open letter to Prosecutor General Kamran Aliyev with a complaint about the actions of the investigation.

At the same meeting, Hanifayev gave instructions to single out the issue of doctors' responsibility in a separate case. An impartial investigation was promised. But it did not follow. Then on January 6, Firuza Gyulalyeva filed a complaint with the Prosecutor General, but there was no response. And only after the publication of this appeal in the press on January 21, the human rights activist’s wife was received on the same day by the Prosecutor General's Office, where she was informed that the doctors' case was closed due to the lack of corpus delicti on December 22 by the investigator of the Nasimi Prosecutor's Office and the decision was sent to lawyer F. Agayev and F. Gyulalyeva. But both sides did not receive the ruling. At the same meeting, it was announced that the Prosecutor General's Office canceled the investigator's order and instructed to resume the investigation.

At a meeting on January 25 in the Nasimi Prosecutor's Office, Prosecutor Hanifayev again made statements about the desire of the Prosecutor's Office to establish the true picture of what had surpassed and, as before, promised to take all the necessary actions. However, he did not explain what and who had prevented the prosecutor's office from conducting an investigation so far.

At the same meeting, Gyulalyev's representatives were not presented with the decree to dismiss the doctors' case of December 22, which gives grounds for the conclusion that the case was not conducted at all. This conclusion also reinforces the failure to conduct investigative actions with the participation of F. Gyulalyeva, the doctors and others. The investigation was limited to the conclusions of the expert examination of a special structure under the Ministry of Health.

Yesterday, in the presence of his lawyer, testimony was taken from F. Gyulalyeva by the investigator, who had not previously properly investigated the “doctors' case”.

Recall that Oktay Gyulalyev was hit by a car at a pedestrian crossing in the center of Baku on October 29, 2019. He was taken to the hospital, but he was operated on only on October 30 in a private clinic by surgeons of the Republican Neurosurgical Hospital.

On January 25, the Nasimi District Court of Baku sentenced citizen Kanan Abdullayev, accused of committing an accident that caused serious damage to the health of Ogtay Gyulalyev, to 2 years 3 months in prison with serving a sentence in a penal colony.

The court found him guilty under Art. 263.1.-1 (Violation of the rules of the road and the operation of vehicles, which, by negligence, entailed serious harm to the health of the injured person) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. In addition, Abdullayev was deprived of his driving license for three years. –0—