Defence of Azerbaijani oppositionist Orkhan Bakhyshly criticize verdict

Despite the softening of his sentence, the advocates of Orkhan Bakhyshly, a young activist of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA), intends to appeal against it to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on September 18, 2018, Bakhyshly, arrested on charges of illegal drug dealing, was sentenced to six years in prison. On June 4, 2019, the Supreme Court (SC) of Azerbaijan partially satisfied his complaint by re-qualifying the charge from the article of "large-scale drug trafficking" to "illegal acquisition, storage, manufacture, processing and transportation of drugs without the aim of selling them", and reduced his prison term down to three years.

Orkhan Bakhyshly declared his innocence and treated his case a political one, claiming that the drugs were planted on him. According to his version, he was detained "under the pretext that he looked like some person who had stolen someone's mobile phone."

His advocate, Elchin Sadygov, has stated that the investigation was conducted with gross violations of the law from the very beginning.

The PFPA leader, Ali Kerimli, has treated the case against Bakhyshly as a "political execution." "The ruling regime has directed all the power of its repressive machinery against the young man due to the fact that the authorities are responsible for the murder of journalist Elmar Guseinov," he has stated.