11:05, 16 February 2016

Rasul Jafarov's sentence upheld by SC

Rasul Jafarov. Photo by Aziz Karimov for the ‘Caucasian Knot’.

The Azerbaijani Supreme Court (SC) has dismissed the appeal filed by advocates of human rights defender Rasul Jafarov and upheld his earlier sentence.

Rasul Jafarov, the coordinator of the campaign "The Art for Democracy", was arrested on August 2, 2014. On April 16, 2015, the Baku Court of Grave Crimes found Rasul Jafarov guilty of a number of economic crimes and sentenced him to 6.5 years of imprisonment in a common-security penal colony. The defence has appealed against the verdict. On July 31, the Baku Court of Appeal (BCA) reduced the Rasul Jafarov's sentence by three months.

The consideration of the cassation appeal filed against the decision of the Baku Court of Appeal was scheduled for today.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that the Azerbaijani Supreme Court took about five minutes to make a decision on the appeal filed against the Rasul Jafarov's sentence.

After the court hearing, the judge has announced that the BCA's decision remains unchanged.

Earlier, advocate Fariz Namazly has reported that in case if the appeal is dismissed, Rasul Jafarov will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

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

Author: Faik Medzhid

Source: CK correspondent