Azerbaijani CoA leaves Rasul Jafarov in custody

Today in Baku, the Court of Appeal (CoA) has rejected the appeal complaint lodged by the rights defender Rasul Jafarov against the refusal to change his freedom restraint, and ruled to leave him behind bars, said his advocate Fariz Namazly.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in July, Rasul Jafarov, a coordinator of the campaign "Art for Democracy", was banned from leaving Azerbaijan, and his bank accounts were arrested. On August 2, the human rights defender was arrested for three month on charges under articles "illegal entrepreneurship", "tax evasion", and "abuse of power" of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan.

"In our appeal complaint we drew the court's attention to the fact that Rasul Jafarov has no intention to escape from the inquiry. As soon as Jafarov was summoned, he contributed to the investigation and timely presented all the documents requested by the prosecutor's office," Fariz Namazly told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to the advocate, there are precedential decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which define the need of pre-trial detention "only if it is absolutely necessary." In Namazly's opinion, there is no reason to keep Rasul Jafarov in custody "also because no investigative actions have been undertaken in his relation after his arrest."

However, the CoA dismissed the appeal and left Jafarov in custody, said the advocate, adding that he intends to complain about violations of Jafarov's rights to the ECtHR.

Let us remind you that the Amnesty International has recognized Jafarov as "prisoner of conscience".

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.