Statement of the Working Group on Unified List of Political Prisoners in Azerbaijan

January 13, 2017 will mark a decade of prison life served by Said Dadashbayli and those arrested with him, namely Farid Agayev, Jeyhun Aliyev, Rashad Aliyev, Mikayil Idrisov, Jahangir Karimov, Samir Gojayev, Baybala Guliyev and Emil Mohbaliyev, whom the Working Group recognizes as political prisoners. These persons were arrested on January 2007. They were convicted of crimes such as coup d’état, terrorism, and illegal possession of weapons and drugs, and were sentenced to between 12 and 14 years in prison.  

Drawing on its own and authoritative international organizations’ researches and reports, the Working Group is convinced that the above mentioned persons are victims of a fictitious crime passed off by the abolished former National Security Ministry (NSM) as prevention of a coup d’état. There are a number of facts that give serious grounds to believe that this criminal case is politically motivated, including, but not limited to, the lack of an objection and comprehensive investigation into the complaints relating to the failure to prove the charges announced against the above persons during both the preliminary investigation and the trial, the flagrant violation of the defendants’ procedural rights during the legal proceedings, their exposure to torture and inhuman treatment in the NSM custody, their relatives’ claims of intimidation by the investigating authority, and Emin Mammadov’s suspicious death in the course of the investigation.  

The ongoing court proceedings on the case of dozens of senior officials of the abolished former NSM arrested in 2015 show that this agency has conducted numerous operations resulting in the filing or threat of filing of trumped-up charges against innocent people. We are confident that an objective investigation of the case of Said Dadashbayli and those arrested with him would have revealed that the operation and investigation conducted by the NSM in respect of these persons was no exception for that matter. It should be noted that, Anvar Seyidov, the judge of Baku Serious Crimes Court presiding over this court case, essentially admitted the NSM’s negative role in this case in a media interview on November 2016, where he said that as these persons had been arrested and investigated by the NSM, the court couldn’t have come to a conclusion on this case different from the investigating authority’s position.   

Kept in high-security prisons over the past 10 years, Said Dadashbayli and those arrested with him have developed serious health problems, the parents of some of them, including Said Dadashbayli’s mother have died, and their families are facing financial and emotional hardships.

The Working Group calls on the Azerbaijani authorities to release the persons arrested in this case using the possible legal mechanisms.