Seven figurants in Ganja riot case sentenced to prison terms

A court in Baku sentenced seven defendants in the case of participation in the riots in Ganja to imprisonment for the terms from 2 to 20 years. They refused to plead guilty, Arzu Abdulla, a member of the Public Committee for Protection of Defendants' Rights, has stated.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on August 9, 2019, the court completed the consideration of the complaint lodged by a defendant within the case on the events in Ganja in July 2018, which has 11 figurants. Four people were released; the remaining seven had their prison terms reduced. On August 15, a court decision was announced on another group of defendants. The convicts and their relatives reacted furiously to the fact that the court had not released them, but just commuted the sentences. To restore the order, law enforcers used tear gas. On August 26, the court commuted the punishment of eight convicts; and on August 30, released one and reduced prison terms of five others.

"According to the defendants and their parents, no proofs of their committed crimes were presented at the trial. Some of the defendants were not in Ganja at all on July 10, 2018, and they certainly could not commit the incriminated crimes," Ms Abdulla has stated.

She said: "Rauf and Gusein Bairamov are father and son ... Gusein received two years in prison allegedly for what he had known about the impending crime but failed to report. His parents were very angry with the injustice of the sentence."

Ogtai Gyulyalyev, the coordinator of the Committee against Repression and Torture, believes that the figurants are persecuted unreasonably.