Mamedov's advocates reject expert conclusion of Ministry of Justice

On April 17, in the Baku Court of Grave Crimes, at the trial of Hilal Mamedov, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Tolyshi Sado", the court listened to the experts, authors of the linguistic examination of the texts written by Mamedov, and of the forensic and technical examination of the carriers used to record the texts. The defence disagreed with the experts and demanded to exclude their opinions from the case files.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Hilal Mamedov was detained in Baku on June 21, 2012. On July 4, he was charged with treason, inciting ethnic hatred and illegal drug possession. Mamedov refused to testify and called on his defenders to participate in the trial just formally, because of its secrecy and non-transparency.

At the hearing on April 10, the defence petitioned to invite the three employees of the Centre of Forensic Medical Expertise of the Ministry of Justice, who gave their opinions on the linguistic, technical and forensic examinations. The judge satisfied the petition.

The lawyer Yalchin Imanov told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that on April 17 the experts Bairamova and Ramazanov were questioned at a closed session.

According to Imanov, the expert Bairamova confirmed her expert opinion that Mamedov in his two articles published in the newspaper "Tolyshi Sado" and in his address to the Talysh people made appeals against public authorities and inciting ethnic hatred.

"At the hearing, we asked about the notion 'against public authorities', but the expert was unable to give a clear unambiguous answer. She also failed to specify between what nations Hilal Mamedov had incited the interethnic enmity," said Imanov and continued: "In his address to Talysh intellectuals, Hilal Mamedov only urged to seek enforcement of their constitutional rights to fair elections, and to elect their representatives to bodies of power, as well as the rights to national names, surnames and place names. In his expressed thoughts there was nothing directed against other nations," said the lawyer Imanov.

On the other hand, according to the lawyer, the text of the address to the Talysh nation, recorded on the flash stick that was confiscated from Mamedov at detention was later amended.

"Hilal Mamedov was ascribed the words of the need to 'fight against oppressors' and the like, in order to accuse him of calls 'against the state," said Imanov.

In its turn, the defence presented the court with an alternative expert conclusion, drawn up by the Institute of Media Law (IML) on Mamedov's incriminated statements.

Let us remind you that the IML had analyzed the interviews, articles and speeches of Mamedov, listed in the allegations and found that they are in line with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) on the freedom of expression and Article 47 of the Constitution of Azerbaijan on the freedom of speech and thought.

Imanov said that the next hearing on Mamedov's case is scheduled for April 24.

An attempt to get comments from the Centre for Forensic Medicine of the Ministry of Justice failed: the Centre said that no comments on such issues are available.