TRIALS IN APRIL 2019

On 24 April 2019, a judgment concerning Vahid Abilov (d.o.b. 02/05/1999) from the  Jehovah’s Witnesses community, a case #1(102) -583/2019, was published on the website of the Criminal Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Azerbaijan Republic.

After being drafted into the military service in May 2017, Vahid Abilov announced his conscientious objection to military service and his willingness to perform an alternative civil service instead. In response, on 09 July 2018, V. Abilov was accused of avoiding military service. His case was transferred to the Agdam District Court and, on 06 September 2018, V. Abilov was found guilty under the Article 321.1 of the Criminal Code of the Azerbaijan Republic (“Refusal without legal grounds from the military service or mobilization call-up with the purpose of avoiding military service”) and sentenced to one year of suspended imprisonment with a probation period of one year. During this time, Abilov must report to the authorities every week and remains subject to travel restrictions. The believer appealed his sentence but the Ganja Court of Appeal rejected his application on 31 October 2018. On 12 January 2019, Vahid Abilov appealed a verdict of guilty to the Supreme Court.

During the trial on 10 April under the chairmanship of the judge Hafiz Nasibov, Yashar Musayev, the lawyer of the convicted, stated that the verdict of guilty contradicted to the Article 76.2 of the Constitution of the Azerbaijan Republic (“If performing military service contradicts the citizens’ beliefs, then, according to the law, it is allowed to replace it by an alternative service”) and also to the Article 9   (“Freedom of thought, conscience and religion”) of the European Convention on Human Rights and the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, especially the judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights dated on  July 7, 2011 (The case of Bayatyan v. Armenia).  Therefore, on the basis of the above, the lawyer has pointed out that the verdict of guilty should be annulled.

However, the judge Hafiz Nasibov denied the appeal on the basis of the Article 76.1 of the Constitution (“Homeland protection is the duty of every citizen”),  сdeliberately failing to pay attention to the next paragraph of this Article, which clearly indicates the possibility of substituting military service by an alternative one. The judge also pointed out that the case of the believer Bayatyan versus Armenia could not be considered as a serious argument due to the fact that, unlike Armenia, Azerbaijan became a victim of aggression and, therefore, the duty of every citizen of Azerbaijan to serve in the army.

30 April

Judge of the Ganja Court of Appeal Elchin Hasmammadov

According to the agency Veten ugrunda and the employees of the Institute of Peace and Democracy in Azerbaijan, on 30 April, there had been a complaint hearing of a group of 11 convicted people on the so-called “Ganja case” at the Baku Court of Appeal under the chairmanship of the Judge of the Ganja Court of Appeal Elchin Hasmammadov.  On 22 February 2019, the Ganja Court of Serious Crimes found them guilty of committing crimes under the Article 220.1. (mass riots) and 315.2 (resistance or use of violence dangerous to life or health against a representative of power) of the Criminal Code of the Azerbaijan Republic and sentenced them from 7 to10 years imprisonment.

One of the convicted, Mireshgin Seyidov, did not file an appeal. Since he lost his parents in childhood, his relatives have been taking care of his affairs; nevertheless, they did not file a complaint by unknown reasons, and therefore he was not in attendance at that meeting.

10 convicts filed complaints, and the lawyers have presently raised the question as to what extend it was a serious violation of the law during the investigation.   Thus, Nizami Musayev, the lawyer of the convicted Ali Rzayev, pointed out that his client had been arrested by the police about 2 hours prior to the Ganja events. However, the detention records showed that he had been detained at 21:30. There are many similar examples in Rzayev’s case and, therefore, the lawyer demanded to reconsider his case again. Other lawyers also pointed to major examples of flagrant violations of the procedural law in their clients’ cases.

However, it turned out that the public prosecutor Adalat Azimov had not been familiar with the convicted cases, which did not prevent him from stating that the court should reject the complaints filed. That caused the strongest discontent among the convicts and their lawyers. One of the lawyers, Zabil Qahramanov, said that he would write a complaint against A. Azimov. Any convicts’ attempts to intervene have been severely halted by Judge Elchin Hasmammadov. That also caused a lot of discontent among the audience in the court. Kamal Quliyev, the convicted, said that he had also been prevented from speaking during the trial, when he saw the policemen for the first time who claimed that he had “beaten” them.

But the judge was unrelenting and set a new hearing for 17 May