The court reduced the term of probation to a journalist by three months

Baku / 25.02.20 / Turan: The Supreme Court of Azerbaijan today considered the cassation appeal of Anar Mammadov, the editor of the site criminal.az.

The journalist was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison with a two-year probationary term on charges of anti-state calls, abuse of power and official forgery in March 2019. The reason for this was the publication of materials about the attempt on the former mayor of Ganja Elmar Veliyev in July 2018.

The sentence was condemned by a number of international journalistic organizations, as well as the OSCE representative for media freedom, Arlem Desir.

The Court of Appeal upheld the verdict.

During the trial in the Supreme Court, the journalist asked to be acquitted, indicating that he had been convicted of falsified charges based on testimonies of three women who were allegedly shocked by reading the articles. Mammadov pointed out that the complainants in the court of first instance were not even able to answer the question about the content of their publications “shocked”.

However, the Supreme Court limited itself to re-qualifying one of the charges - abuse of office, which entailed grave consequences (Article 309.2) - by 309.1 (abuse of office) and reduced the term of probation by only three months.

Mammadov does not agree with the decision of the Supreme Court, and intends to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. -06D-