Azerbaijan: Rasul Jafarov's advocate treats charges put forward by GPO as unjustified

The General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) of Azerbaijan has announced today that the rights defender Rasul Jafarov had used the grants provided by the American Foundation for Democracy (NED) for extracting illegal financial gains.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the information about Jafarov's arrest arrived to the SMS-service of the "Caucasian Knot" on August 2. The court ruled to arrest him for three months and charged him under the articles of "illegal entrepreneurship", "tax evasion" and "abuse of power" of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan.

The GPO asserts that they have received information from the Financial Monitoring Service that Jafarov, acting as the chairman of the unregistered NGO "Human Rights Club" undertook "questionable banking operations."

As a result of his illegal business activities, Jafarov received an income in the amount of 147,900 manats (about 188,000 US dollars), and evaded taxes in the amount of 6162 manats (about 7860 US dollars), the GPO reports.

As stated by Khalid Bagirov, Jafarov's advocate, the GPO's claims are far-fetched and politically motivated, while the charges are unjustified. In the coming days, Bagirov plans to appeal against Jafarov's arrest at the Court of Appeal (CoA).