Another suspect of beating journalist and rights defender detained in Azerbaijan

So far, law enforcement bodies of Azerbaijan refrain from comments on possible motives for the beating on June 15 in Baku of the American journalist Amanda Erickson and British human rights defender Celia Davis, despite detention of three suspects of committing this crime.

On June 15, in Baku, the women were attacked by unidentified assailants. Erickson and Davis were near their home, when they were attacked by several young men of athletic body-build, who began beat the foreigners without any explanations. According to the victims, earlier they had felt being shadowed.

On June 25, the press-service of the local MIA announced that the police had detained Tagizade Adyl Gusein oglu, born in 1993, a resident of the village of Ramana, and Gasanov Roman Musa oglu, born in 1989, a resident of the Nasimin District of Baku. The names of two other persons suspected of the attack are also known.

On June 27, it became known about detention of another suspect – Vusal Gurbanov, 28, a resident of Khyrdalan.

Emin Guseinov, Director of the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS), said that the suffered women left Azerbaijan after the incident to recover from the stress. Ms Davis, who collaborated with the IRFS, is currently taking her treatment at home, in Britain.

"There must be an open public trial to establish why the four men had attacked defenceless young women," said Guseinov, stressing that the unknowns took neither money nor jewellery away from the women.

According to lawyer Intigam Aliev, the head of the Society of Legal Education, a motive for the attack could be someone's desire to intimidate foreign journalists and stop them from writing negatively about Azerbaijan for foreign press.

See earlier report: "American journalist and British rights defender beaten in Baku".