Imprisoned OC Media contributor and academic Bahruz Samadov has been transferred from Umbaki prison to the N11 facility and placed in solitary confinement. His grandmother Zibeyda Osmanova says these new conditions have led him to again consider committing suicide.
Osmanova told OC Media that Samadov called her on Monday and said that he would only be returned to his original prison facility after a month and a half. She added that she was not allowed to meet with Samadov on Tuesday.
Speaking to her on the phone, Samadov told his grandmother that he could not understand why he was transferred to the N11 facility and why he had been turned into a pawn.
‘He said that these people wished him death, and as he faced this kind of attitude, he asked them to kill him’, Osmanova said.
Samadov’s lawyer, Zibeyda Sadigova, told OC Media that he was transferred to facility N11 on 18 October, after which he was placed in solitary confinement.
Sadigova stated that as he was sentenced with a grave crime — high treason — he would most probably be kept in a strict regime.
Osmanova told OC Media that when Samadov is again transferred to Umbaki, he will be placed in a cell without TV or a radio.
Similarly, feminist activist Gulnara Mehdiyeva wrote on social media that Samadov will be living in a ‘closed, isolated prison’ after he is transferred back to Umbaki prison, a facility mainly used for those who have been convicted of serious crimes.
‘He will be without television, without radio, without gifts, and [with] visits permitted only once every two to three months. Even if visits were permitted, Umbaki is located remotely in the middle of the desert, preventing his only relative, his 82-year-old grandmother, from getting there. This is being done to exert intense psychological pressure on Bahruz and destroy him’, Mehdiyeva wrote.
Aytan Farhadova
Previously, when in Umbaki prison, Osmanova told OC Media that Samadov was living in a cell with two other people.
‘He said that the room is dark and has no TV and radio. The cell has only one window and they were not allowed to leave the cell. He did not speak a lot and only said that the cell is cold and he is cold at nights’, Osmanova said.
Osmanova told OC Media that in August, they had appealed to state agencies regarding his case, and received a response late in September.
‘Someone slipped a letter under my door. And it only contained one sentence: “Your letter was sent to [president aide] Hikmat Hajiyev” ’, Osmanova told OC Media.
Samadov previously attempted suicide two times while in Umbaki prison.
He was sentenced on charges of treason to 15 years of prison in June by the order of the Baku Grave Crimes Court. He had originally been detained in August 2024. He has denied all accusations against him.
Gulnara Mehdiyeva
