Azerbaijani court refused to release Intigam Aliev under rights defenders' guarantee

In Baku, a court session on the case of the rights defender Intigam Aliev was postponed after an altercation that broke out among the victim and the observers present in the courtroom. Before that, the judge dismissed a number of motions put forward by Aliev's defence.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Intigam Aliev, the head of the non-profit organization (NPO) "Society of Legal Education", was detained on August 8, 2014. Initially, he was accused of tax evasion and illegal entrepreneurship, but in December 2014 the charges were supplemented by an article about a large-scale embezzlement.

On January 23, at a preliminary session on the case, the court rejected the defence's motions on termination the criminal proceedings against Aliev, to change his freedom restraint measure, and to conduct an audio and video recording of the trial.

At the beginning of today's session of the Baku Court for Grave Crimes, the advocate Fakhraddin Mekhtiev put forward a motion to release Aliev under the guarantee of a group of rights defenders and public figures.

They asked the court to take into account Aliev's human rights activities and his popularity in the country and abroad.

Ilker Gekan Shen, a representative of the organization "International Partnership for Human Rights", said that he had an impression that the court deprived the defence of any chances to generate evidence in favour of the defendant.

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