SC of Azerbaijan upholds verdict to TCC head

The Supreme Court (SC) of Azerbaijan has rejected the cassation complaint lodged by Novruzali Mamedov, head of the Talysh Cultural Centre (TCC), convicted to 10 years of imprisonment on charge of high treason. Mamedov's advocate finds the decision unjustified.

On May 27, Tapdyg Makhmudov, Judge of the Supreme Court, upheld, at a closed session, the verdicts of the Court on Grave Crimes and the Baku Appeal Court to Novruzali Mamedov, head of the TCC and editor-in-chief of the "Tolyshi Syado" (Talysh Voice), as his advocate Ramiz Mamedov said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The advocate has stated the "groundlessness" of holding a closed trial and "injustice of the SC's decision." According to his story, all the judicial instances, while assessing the proofs presented by investigation, based their conclusions on evidences of one person - another convict on the case - responsible secretary of the newspaper Elman Guliev.

The advocate plans to file a complaint to the European Court on Human Rights.

Khilal Mamedov, head of the Committee in Defence of Novruzali Mamedov's Rights, also thinks that the investigation and the trials against the head of the TCC were built on evidences of one person, were conducted with prejudice and were accompanied by rough remedial violations.

Khilal Mamedov is sceptical as to Elman Guliev's evidences.

"When at the Court on Grave Crimes Guliev was asked: 'How can you prove that Ali Abdoli Gamzali (an Iranian with whom Novruzali Mamedov was in scientific cooperation) is from a special service of Iran?', he answered: 'He has two wives'; this caused laughter even in the Judge," said Khilal Mamedov.

In his opinion, the whole prosecution is absurd. In particular, Novruzali Mamedov was incriminated of "propaganda of the Talysh language, culture and arts", "appeals to international organizations on violations of rights of Talysh people with the aim to damage the image of Azerbaijan", "appeal to the managers of the Public Television for opening of programmes in the Talysh language" and some other offences, as emphasized by Khilal Mamedov.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has failed to receive any comments at the PR Centre of the Ministry for National Security (MNS) of Azerbaijan. In general, the MNS has failed to make a single comment on the issue within for more than 2 years after Novruzali Mamedov's arrest, despite protests of human rights defenders and negative reaction of international organizations.