Ismayilova to appeal against Baku court's judgement to commute her punishment

Journalist Khadija Ismayilova disagrees with the decision of the Baku court to reduce the term of her conditional punishment. She intends to seek to stop her criminal prosecution under the article of illegal entrepreneurship.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on July 8 Ismayilova appealed to the Baku Court of Grave Crimes asking to lift the charges against her of illegal entrepreneurship, under which on September 1, 2015, she was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison. On May 25, 2016, the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan replaced Khadija's real imprisonment for 3.5 years of conditional term with a probation period of five years; and the journalist was released. Today, the court reduced her conditional sentence from 3.5 years down to 2 years and 3 months.

Her advocate Fariz Namazly has explained that the prosecution believes that all Ismayilova's royalties received during five years in the amount of 79,500 manats (49,500 US dollars) were received by her as a result of illegal entrepreneurship, because she had not passed accreditation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Azerbaijan.

Ismayilova has explained that she seeks decriminalization of her activities as such, without the accreditation at the MFA.

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