Azerbaijan presses new charges against three detained in AbzasMedia case

Azerbaijani police have pressed new charges against two of AbzasMedia’s staff members and an economist detained during the crackdown on independent media.

The chief investigator of the Baku City Police Department on Friday charged AbzasMedia’s deputy director Mahammad Kekalov, journalist Nargiz Absalamova, and unaffiliated economist Farid Mehralizade with illegal entrepreneurship, smuggling assets as part of an organised group, tax evasion, and falsifying documents.

If found guilty under the new articles, they could face up to 12 years in prison, and up to 20 with their previous charge of smuggling foreign currency as part of an organised group.

Leyla Mustafayeva, the interim editor-in-chief of AbzasMedia, told OC Media that she expected three other detained AbzasMedia members to be charged with the same articles to further discredit the outlet.

‘We think that the investigator wants to close the investigation and logically they couldn’t close this case as smuggling; that is why they added tax evasion and illegal entrepreneurship’, she said. 

On the same day the police announced the new charges, Farid Mehralizade’s wife, Nargiz Mukhtarova, dismissed the charges as ‘simply absurd accusations based on an absence of any evidence against him’.

‘For many years Farid worked at a bank under an official employment contract. A car which he bought in his name through an official transfer at a price that a person with an official salary can easily buy and use for personal purposes, is being presented as an asset purchased through laundered money’, she said. 

Mehralizade was detained as part of the case against AbzasMedia in May, despite not having any ties to the independent news outlet.

Azerbaijan began its crackdown on independent media in November with its raid of AbzasMedia. Police have detained a total of five of the outlet’s staff on charges of smuggling money, including their director Ulvi Hasanli, editor-in-chief Sevinj Vagifgizi, deputy director Mahammad Kekalov, journalists Nargiz Absalamova and Elnara Gasimova.

The authorities have also detained freelancer Hafiz Babali as part of the case against AbzasMedia on the same charges.

All those detained in the AbzasMedia case have denied all charges against them and maintain that their arrests relate to their journalistic work.

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