14:26, 18 February 2020

Ganja riot trial postponed indefinitely

Ganja, Azerbaijan. Screenshot from video White City, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-7RnVIl_1s

During the hearings in a case against Yunis Safarov and other persons accused of participating in the Ganja events, the defence requested the court to transfer the trial to Ganja or the Baku Court on Grave Crimes. The court pronounced a decision to send the motion to the Ganja Court of Appeal for consideration and postponed the trial indefinitely.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on January 7 and 8, in Baku, a preparatory hearing was held in the case against Yunis Safarov, accused of attempted assassination of Ganja Mayor Elmar Veliev, and other suspects. During the hearing on the merits held on January 16, Yunis Safarov requested the court to ensure the publicity of the trial and also claimed a violation of his rights to relatives' visits and phone calls in a SIZO (pre-trial prison).

On July 3, 2018, an assassination attempt was committed against Elmar Veliev, the head of the city administration of Ganja. Law enforcers treated the attempt as a terror act, and detained Yunis Safarov, a native of Ganja, as a suspect of committing the crime. After that, mass protests began, where protesters expressed dissatisfaction with the work of Veliev himself. On July 10, 2018, about 200 people took part in the protest action in Ganja and demanded to investigate not only the attackers' actions, but also Veliev's work. When dispersing the action, two policemen perished.

On February 17, the Sabunchu District Court of Baku continued the trial in the criminal case against Yunis Safarov and other 11 people, the agency "Turan" reported on the same day.

At the beginning of the court hearing, the advocates filed a motion to transfer the trial to Ganja or the Baku Court on Grave Crimes, since the Sabunchu District Court's courtroom was extremely small.

The court pronounced the decision to send the motion to the Ganja Court of Appeal for consideration. The trial was postponed indefinitely, the "Meydan.tv" reported on its website on February 17.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on February 18, 2019 at 08:30 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.