Court rejects Ismayilova's petition of clemency

The Court of Appeal (CoA) has dismissed the petition lodged by Khadija Ismayilova and asking to remove illegal entrepreneurship from her accusations. Her defence now intends to appeal against the dismissal at the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on July 8 Ismayilova appealed to the Baku Court of Grave Crimes with a request to remove illegal entrepreneurship from her accusations, under which on September 1, 2015 she was sentenced to 7.5 years of imprisonment.

Her advocate Fariz Namazly says that the complaint was justified by the amendments to the Criminal Code, which entered into force on June 1 this year.

"In the old wording of the article, 'illegal entrepreneurship' was treated as 'any entrepreneurship activity without state registration,' which had allowed investigators to interpret the lack of Khadija's accreditation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) as 'illegal entrepreneurship'," said the advocate.

According to his version, the new wording of the article clarifies that illegal entrepreneurship is any activity without a tax registration, or without a license.

According to Ismayilova, the lifting of the above accusation is important to create a precedent. She has declared that she will seek the recognition of the illegality of her prosecution under the article of "illegal entrepreneurship" up 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’.