French citizen Ryan Martin has been convicted by an Azerbaijani court for spying for France and sentenced to 10 years in prison. In addition, Azerbaijani national Azad Mammadli was also convicted of treason in the same case and sentenced to 12 years in prison, the pro-government media outlet APA reported on Monday.
Martin and Mammadli were arrested in 2023 while Martin was working as the general director of the food distribution company Merkorama.
Azerbaijan’s Security Service (DTX) accused Ryan of working for French intelligence to acquire a variety of material about Azerbaijan’s defence capabilities and other confidential information. The DTX further alleged that Ryan had recruited Mammadli to work as an undercover agent.
Shortly after his arrest, Ryan told his father on the phone that he believed the charges were linked to Azerbaijan’s long-standing enmity with France, primarily linked to French support for Armenia.
For its part, Paris has denied the allegations, although Ryan reportedly ‘pleaded partially guilty to the charge’.
‘I consider myself guilty only in that I should not have established contacts with some embassy employees, or that I should have shared information about them with the appropriate authorities’, Ryan said in court.
‘I did not spy. I am not a spy, and during the court case I tried to prove this’.
Before Ryan’s arrest, he had spoken favourably about Azerbaijan and called on France to seek rapprochement with Azerbaijan.
Other French nationals have been arrested in Azerbaijan and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences on charges they claimed were motivated by geopolitics, such as Théo Clerc, who was sentenced to three years in prison for spray painting a Baku Metro train. Clerc was later pardoned by President Ilham Aliyev in 2025.
Aytan Farhadova
