Azerbaijani CoA leaves journalist Mirkadyrov in custody

The Baku Court of Appeal (CoA) has dismissed the appeal lodged by the journalist Rauf Mirkadyrov against the extension of his arrest until 19 September. His defence finds this decision illegal.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Rauf Mirkadyrov, an observer for the Russian-language newspaper "Zerkalo" (Mirror) is accused of espionage in favour of Armenia. The journalist denies the accusations; and his prosecution was condemned by his colleagues and international human rights organizations.

"Unfortunately, once again we have faced a violation of Mirkadyrov's rights and norms of the law", his advocate Fuad Agaev told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

He explained that according to the law, the consideration of the appeal complaint shall be attended by the public prosecutor, who is in charge of supervising the investigation; in this case – Rustam Usubov, First Deputy General Public Prosecutor of Azerbaijan. However, instead, the country's General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) has sent Ibragim Lemberansky, an investigator for especially important cases.

According to Agaev, the Azerbaijani legislation does not provide for a possibility to lodge a cassation complaint to the Supreme Court against decisions related to the freedom restraint measure.

However, the defence will list all the violations of Mirkadyrov's rights in its complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), said the advocate, adding that there is no need to keep Mirkadyrov behind bars, as for many months already no investigatory actions are undertaken in his relation.

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