Azerbaijan: criminal charge against Ismayilova supplemented with new episode

The Binagadi District Court of Baku has added an episode of dissemination in 2011 of the material allegedly defaming the former oppositionist Elman Turkoglu (Gasanov) to the case of the journalist Khadija Ismayilova, accused of slander.

The December 2 session considered two petitions put forward by the prosecution, said Ismayilova herself. According to her version, Turkoglu accused her of disseminating two texts against him. One of them says that Turkoglu was brought to cooperate, through blackmail by compromising with video clips, with the Ministry of National Security; the second reports that in 1992 Turkoglu committed a rape in the Sheki District.

"As to the second document, I didn't spread it at all. The first file that came to my disposal, I disseminated by prior crossing out all the data that allowed to identify the person in question," said the journalist.

The legal inconsistency of the above petition was noted by the lawyer Elton Guliev, who said that the statement "disseminated but then deleted" was not supported by any document. However, the judge granted the petition and scheduled the next session for December 5.

Ismayilova earlier stated that Turkoglu is used by the authorities to put pressure on her in order to prevent her investigative journalism and activities to protect the rights of political prisoners.

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