Doubtful judgment

Bakı/28.09.22/Turan:  Much is spoken  in the Ministry of Justice and  the  Azerbaijani TV about reforms in the field of jurisprudence, the humanization of justice, the fight against bribery and protectionism. But two facts are enough to disbelieve it: after the investigation which lasted a year and a half, during which the young woman Nelli Fabrichnaya was under house arrest and participated in investigative actions, on September 19 she was put in the Kurdakhan pretrial detention center (Baku pre-trial detention center-1). It was the decision of  Faik Ganiev, the judge  of the  Serious Crimes Court.

On Monday,  Turan correspondent attended a meeting of the Baku Serious Crimes Court. The lawsuit of businessman Afgan Zeynalov against Nelli Fabrichnaya, the head of the personnel department of his company “Murov” TSK LLC, which performs construction contracts of “Dəmiryol” CJSC, was considered.

Fabrichnaya considers herself completely innocent, denies all accusations and claims that she confessed during the preliminary investigation under pressure from the investigator and the accusing party.

In this story, at first glance, even insignificant fact speaks of widespread corruption, such as  “Dəmiryol” CJSC signed a contract with Afgan Zeynalov, who, previously, being the owner of “Avtotransyol”, was sentenced in 2015 by the Lankaran court to seven years in prison for falsification and theft (the Article 179.3.2, Article. 308.2) during the construction of a highway . The asphalt was laid at a thinner thickness than envisaged by the project, and the owner of the company, Zeynalov, fabricated fake documents, forging the signatures of the dead people.

Having been released ahead of time, before the expiration of the sentence established by the court, he created the “Murov” TSK LLC company, and, as they said, received an order from the Azerbaijani railway. As if there was no other company in the country with an owner with a clean name.

What happened then is astonishing. Having a guarded office and real estate with his closest relatives, the "homeless" owner of the company registered in the Baku apartment of his subordinate Nelli Fabrichnaya and installed an expensive safe in her apartment. Of course, he did not give the keys and the code to the safe to the owner of the apartment,  Fabrichnaya claims in a statement sent to the Nasimi district prosecutor's office.

Here we omit the little things, and move on to the main event: in July 2021, Zeynalov accused Nelly of stealing $300,000 belonging to him. Then he added another $100 thousand dollars to this, still unproven amount. And then, in the sound telephone messages sent to Nelly, he repeatedly threatened to raise this amount to $500 thousand dollars, up to a million manats, if Fabrichnaya did not give him the apartment. In the same messages, he intimidated his subordinate with his personal connections in high law enforcement circles.

Details were revealed in court, consideration of which requires a lot of time and evidence of forensic examination, interrogation of witnesses, face-to-face confrontations, etc. All this will take place during the  trial, which will drag on and promise to be interesting. But will the court be objective?

On Monday, at the trial, the judge Ganiev allowed Afgan Zeynalov to speak as much as he wished. The plaintiff and his lawyer painted a fascinating story in the style of Conan Doyle's stories about Nelli Fabrichnaya, allegedly secretly poisoning Zeynalov in order to kill him and thus hide the theft of large sums belonging to the head of the company. But when Fabrichnaya's lawyer, Gazanfar Rzayev, recalled that this story was rejected at the stage of investigation and demanded to investigate the fact of the forgery of a letter with a fake signature of Nelly Fabrichnaya, confirmed by an expert, the judge stopped listening to this episode.

The judge also refused to consider audio messages with the voice of Zeynalov, in which he exposes himself. The judge did not take into account the absence of  documents confirming  that transferred sums of money belonged to Zeynalov. As if the talk is about the missing five manats, and as if in Azerbaijan businessmen are not required to transfer large sums through banks. Although no - in response to the question of the lawyer Gazanfar Rzayev, Zeynalov shouted to him - "I found this money in the trash." And then in the courtroom he shouted threateningly and waved his arms in front of the lawyer's face.

The aggressive behavior of the "victim" in the courtroom repeatedly forced his defense lawyer to inform the judge about Zeynalov's emotionality. What is called "emotionality" resulted in Zeynalov's beating  his subordinate Nelly Fabrichnaya. But again, the judge refused to consider the petition for a judicial investigation of the fact of beating Fabrichnaya by Zeynalov.

The judge was not interested in the fact that while Zeynalov spoke about his military merits in the 44-day Karabakh war in the documents presented to the court and speech in the courtroom, the Ministry of Defense replied to the request of Rzayev's lawyer that Zeynalov did not participate in the war. At this point in the hearing, Zeynalov again showed emotionality angrily announcing that he had been awarded medals by the Ministry of Defense.

A question to the Ministry of Defense: How and to whom  they give medals? Question to judge Ganiev: Why does not he consider this episode, which, along with the fact of Zeynalov's conviction in the Lenkoran court, characterizes the personality of the accuser and the objectivity of his testimony? How can a court believe a person who has repeatedly been convicted of lying?

The judge did not hear a single petition, or even the phrase of Rzayev's lawyer. He spoke more than he Nelli  Fabrichnaya’s defender.

The next meeting is scheduled for October 3. If  the judge Ganiev satisfies  Zeynalov's plan, the accuser will put the woman in prison for 10-14 years and take away her apartment in the central part of Baku. He can also get 700,000 manats recovered from her. The efficiency of such a “business” is better than doing the hard work of railway construction, with the risk of being brought to justice again, as was the case with Zeynalov after the construction of roads.