Azerbaijani SC dismisses Faig Amirov's cassation appeal

The verdict to Faig Amirov, the financial director of the opposition newspaper "Azadlig", who is serving his conditional sentence, will be challenged at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the defence reports.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on July 24, 2017, Faig Amirov was found guilty for inciting interreligious hostility and tax evasion.

Today, the Supreme Court (SC) of Azerbaijan dismissed the cassation appeal of Faig Amirov, which was filed after the decision of the appeal court.

"Today, I and Faig Amirov have spoken at the Supreme Court and requested judges to acquit him. We have pointed to the groundlessness of the charges. Faig Amirov was not responsible for paying taxes for the edition," advocate Agil Laidjev told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The advocate has also pointed to the inconsistency of the charge of inciting interreligious hostility. "The public prosecutor claimed that Faig Amirov was allegedly going to publish an article with propaganda of the Fethullah Gülen's ideas to incite interreligious hostility. However, there is no evidence of that," Agil Laidjev noted.

"We will prepare a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights. The case contains a series of violations contradicting a number of articles of the European Convention on Human Rights," said the advocate.

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