The lawsuit of Khadija Ismayilova with tax workers

Baku/03.04.18/Turan: The lawsuit of the Ministry of Taxes on the recovery of a tax debt of 63,138 manat from the investigative journalist Khadija Ismaylova continued today in the Baku Administrative Economic Court N1. Based on the claims of the Ministry of Taxes in November 2017, the bank account of Khadidji Ismayilova was blocked. During the trial, the journalist and her representative Yalchin Imanov made two petitions. The first one concerned the involvement of the representative office of Radio Liberty in Azerbaijan as a third party.

The second petition concerned the inclusion of the decision of the Supreme Court in the Ismaylova case on May 25, 2016. According to this decision, the real term was replaced by conditional punishment in connection with the justification under articles 179 (misappropriation or embezzlement) and 308 (abuse of official authority.)

Ismayilova was accused that, as head of the Baku bureau of Radio Liberty, from July 2008 to October 2010, she evaded the income tax from 45,145 manats. She was also charged with concluding service contracts with employees with the aim of avoiding withholding 14% of income tax from them. In total, the investigation accused her of not paying to the budget 17992 manats. The lawyer explained that for this sum Ismayilova was charged under the Article 179, but than she was justified.

In turn, the representative of the Ministry of Taxes opposed the involvement of the representative office of Radio Azadlig as a third party. With regard to the involvement of the decision of the Supreme Court, he asked for time to develop the position of the Ministry of Taxes.

Ismayilova called the accusations absurd, because being the head of the Bureau of "Radio Azadlig" she dealt with creative issues and did not interfere in financial matters. The court session will continued on April 17, where the decisions will be announced and on motions.

Ismayilova was arrested on December 5, 2015 and sentenced to 7.5 years imprisonment under the Articles: 179.3.2 ( large-scale embezzlement), 192.2.2 (illegal entrepreneurship), 213.1 (tax evasion) and 308.2 ( abuse of power) of the Criminal Code. The journalist rejected the charges, saying that she was arrested for anti-corruption investigations.

On May 25, 2016, the Supreme Court released her from prison, replacing the imprisonment for 3.5 years' imprisonment on probation and her charges were dropped under the Article 179 and 308. -06D-