Nine Azerbaijani nationals were put on trial in France for plotting to murder exiled Azerbaijani blogger Mahammad Mirzali in 2021. The group is being accused of attempted murder and membership in a criminal group.
The trial began on Tuesday in the French city of Rennes.
Speaking to independent media outlet Gazetji, Mirzali said that he was attacked and ‘seriously injured’ by the group in the centre of Nantes in March 2021 ‘on the orders of the Azerbaijani authorities’.
‘After the incident, three men left France, traveled through various countries, reached Turkey, then Azerbaijan, and from there to their hometown of Nakhchivan’, Mirzali told Gazetji.
He said the same group again attacked him in 2022.
At the time, pro-government media outlet Lent.az, which did not mention Mirzali by name, reported that that a criminal group consisting of three people — Emin Gasimov, Tural Mammadli, and Seymur Eyvazov — was behind the second attempt on his life.
However, the three suspects were detained separately after scattering across Europe.
Gasimov, nicknamed Emin Nakhchivansky by his friends and acquaintances, was detained in France under the name Andrei Topal on a fake Moldovan passport in June 2022.
Later, Eyvazov and Mammadli were detained by Swiss intelligence services at the border with France and were extradited to France.
Another suspect, Mehraj Zarbaliyev, who is accused of attacking Mirzali in 2021, was arrested by Europol in Poland and extradited to France in October 2022.
One member of the group, Rovshan Gojayev, is still at large and is wanted by the Interpol. He is being tried in absentia.
‘One person who was detained in Hungary by Europol was Faig Pashazada. After Victor Orbán’s resignation as Prime Minister, he was also handed over to French law enforcement’, said Mirzali.
According to France3, three of the suspects are charged with ‘attempted murder by an organised group, a crime punishable by life imprisonment’, and six others ‘with complicity and criminal conspiracy’.
Local French media outlet RMC reported that ‘Mirzali arrived at the courthouse in an armored car, with bodyguards and wearing a bulletproof vest’.
France3 reported that the courthouse was cordoned off and was surrounded by a heavy police presence.
The trial is scheduled to last until 12 June.
Mirzali founded Youtube channel Made in Azerbaijan in 2015 and has been a political refugee in France since 2016. According to RMC, he ‘dreaded’ the trial.
‘He hasn’t slept or eaten for days. He has a vivid and painful memory of the attack, in his mind, but also on his bruised body riddled with scars, he received about 15 stab wounds. The most visible scar is behind his neck’, wrote RMC.
Mirzali is not the first critic of the Azerbaijani government to be attacked in France.
In October 2024, Azerbaijani exiled blogger Vidadi Isgandarli died after being stabbed in his office in Mulhouse, France. His brother, Ogtay Isgandarli, told OC Media that before he died, three people were involved in the attack.
