British rights defender, beaten in Azerbaijan, evidences to the court

Today, the Yasamal District Court of Azerbaijan held a hearing on charges of committing acts of hooliganism against the US citizen Amanda Erickson and the citizen of Great Britain Celia Davis.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on June 15 in Baku, the ladies were attacked by unidentified assailants. Ms Erickson and Ms Davis were almost at home, when they were attacked by several young men of athletic body-build, who started beating them without any explanations. According to the victims, they felt that they were shadowed.

The prisoner's dock contains Adil Tagizade, Roman Gasanov, Vusal Gurbanov, and Nazim Guseinov, who have been indicted under the articles of "hooliganism committed by a group of persons" and "deliberate infliction of harm to one's health" of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. The prosecution is maintained by prosecutor Rizvan Sultanov.

At the trial, the defendants began to give contradictory evidences.

Thus, on October 6, at the preparatory session, the defendants said they were not going to get acquainted with the foreign women, and just wanted to help them, because the women were "drunk". They also rejected the accusations that they were themselves drunk, and beat and abused the women.

At the session on 13 October, chaired by Judge Elchin Gurbanov, the accused reiterated that they wanted to get acquainted with the women.

One of the victims - Ms Davis - was present at the trial and said that the defendants were lying. According to the testimony of Celia Davis, the defendants had chased the girls on the street; then, the foreigners asked to leave them alone. Then, the young men attacked them, began pushing them with their hands, took away their bags, and tossed the women to the ground.

"They knocked me and Amanda down on the ground and started kicking us. After that, various bodily injuries were found on us. We were very scared," said the lady.

She also stated that neither she nor her friend had been intoxicated.

Ms Davis testified in English and was translated into Azerbaijani. However, at some point, she expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of translation made by the interpreter appointed by the state, and demanded clarification.

The defence offered the services of an independent interpreter, but the judge declined this request.

The lawyer Elchin Sadygov has described the actions of the court as "violation of the rights" of his client.

Then, the victim's advocate asked the court for some time needed to review the case files. The process was postponed until October 27, said the "APA".

Since the victim Amanda Erickson is in the USA, she does not take part in the proceedings.

In the opinion of the lawyer Intigam Aliev, the head of the Society of Legal Education, the motive of the crime could be the intimidation of the foreign journalists, for them not to write negative materials about our country in foreign press.