In Azerbaijan, case of Emil Mamedov, head of NGO "Democracy Promotion", sent to court

According to investigators, the preliminary inquiry into the case of Emil Mamedov, the head of the NGO "Democracy Promotion", acting in the country's south, is over; and in the near future the case will go to court.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 13 Emil Mamedov was detained on suspicion of extorting money, after Tofig Gasymov, an activist of the NGO, on April 17 at confrontation testified against his boss. Gasymov said that under Mamedov's instruction he collected money from heads of regional institutions, blackmailing them by publishing defamatory material on the Internet.

In the opinion of Elchin Sadygov, Mamedov's advocate, investigators have failed to present any serious evidence against his client.

According to his story, the list of victims includes the officials who are subordinate, in this way or other, to Takhir Kerimov, the head of the executive power of the Salyan District; therefore, he and his client believe that Kerimov is the real customer of the criminal case against Mamedov.

In its turn, the press service of the local Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has denied any political motives of the criminal case.

Local human rights activists believe Mamedov to be a political prisoner. His name was put on the list of 81 political prisoners, compiled by 11 Azerbaijani NGOs and distributed on June 24 at the PACE session in Strasbourg.