Rasul Jafarov's advocates urge Baku court to acquit him

Today, at the trial of Rasul Jafarov in Azerbaijan, his advocates announced their closing remarks: they urged the court to acquit the rights defender, stating that his guilt was not proved.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Rasul Jafarov, the coordinator of the campaign "Arts for Democracy", who was detained on August 2, 2014, was charged with illegal entrepreneurship, tax evasion, abuse of power, fraud and a large-scale embezzlement. Jafarov finds the charges baseless and politically motivated. The international human rights organization "Amnesty International" has recognized him as a "prisoner of conscience".

In today's speech, his advocate Alibaba Rzaev pointed to the inconsistency of Jafarov charging with "a large-scale embezzlement".

"The money belonged to donors. However, investigators failed to attract the donors as victims; moreover, the donors themselves presented documents that they have no claims to Rasul Jafarov, and confirmed the execution of the projects they had funded," continued the advocate.

Alibaba Rzaev has treated the criminal case against Jafarov as "absurd, biased and illegal" and called on the court to acquit his client on all the indictment points.

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