Turan team claims investigators’ pressure

In the evening on August 29, the Turan news agency released a statement, claiming the pressure from investigators on the news agency's staff members.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Mekhman Aliev, director of the Turan news agency, was detained on August 24. He was charged with illegal entrepreneurship and tax evasion, and the court pronounced the decision to arrest Mekhman Aliev. The director of Turan news agency denied the charges.

"Following the illegal arrest of Mekhman Aliev, the director of the news agency 'Turan', on August 28, about ten staff members of the news agency and people of external support were summoned to the Department for Preliminary Investigation of Tax Crimes under the Ministry of Taxes. The summoning of such a large number of people on one day for questioning as witnesses was accompanied by gross violations of the law," reports the statement published on the news agency's website.

According to the authors of the statement, during questioning, two journalists were "illegally deprived of their legal representative."

"We believe that the questionings of the news agency's employees in the situation of procedural violations of the law, with deprivation of the advocate's service, with specially designed unprecedented intensity, serve the purpose to reinforce by all means the fabricated charges against Mekhman Aliev," Turan news agency reports in its statement.

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