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Become a memberA member of the opposition Azerbaijani Popular Front Party has been sentenced to five years in prison on drug charges, after he says drugs were planted on him by police.
On Tuesday, the Baku Court of Grave Crimes found Mehman Aliyev guilty of the purchase, transportation, and storage of narcotics in large quantities for sale.
Aliyev told family members and close friends that he would begin a hunger strike in protest against the verdict.
In his final statement to the court, RFE/RL reported that Aliyev had accused police of planting drugs on him. He attributed the charges to a video he had posted on social media showing his relative, Ali Isayev, being detained by police.
The video was distributed on social media in May 2024. In the footage, plainclothes police officers are shown trying to detain a man in Azerbaijan’s Shirvan district who then stabs himself while claiming that the officers were trying to plant drugs on him.
Aliyev told the court on Tuesday that the police did not attempt to search Isayev at the scene, but instead tried to force him into a car. It was at this point that Isayev allegedly harmed himself.
After posting the footage, Aliyev claimed that Shirvan police had threatened him, demanding that he delete the footage. After he refused and both Aliyev and Isayev traveled to Baku, they were both detained on charges of drug possession.
Isayev’s court case is still in progress.
Aliyev’s lawyer, Fakhraddin Mehdiyev, told RFE/RL that they planned to appeal against the conviction.
RFE/RL has reported, citing a source in the Popular Front Party, that more than 15 members of the party are currently in prison. The majority have been charged with drug trafficking, charges they say were fabricated due to their political views.
At least ten members of Azerbaijani opposition party detained in Baku
On Monday, about ten members of the Popular Front Party, an opposition group, were detained outside Baku’s Nasimi District Court pending the ongoing trial of the party’s chair Ali Karimli. After the police dispersal, the court process began and according to the decision, Karimli was fined ֏1500 ($882). He had been sued for slander by the former chair of the Control and Audit Commission of the party, Aydin Aliyev, who was expelled from the party in 2019. Karimli’s lawyer Fakhraddin Mehdiyev
Aytan Farhadova
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