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Today the Baku Court of Appeal held a preparatory meeting on the case of a member of the youth committee of the Popular Front Party (PFPA) Orhan Bakhyshly.
During the meeting, lawyer Elchin Sadigov put forward five petitions. He asked the court to consider the complaint with the re-trial, to appoint an examination of a narcotic substance, allegedly belonging to Bakhyshly, to find out whether the witnesses in this case were involved in other cases, whether there are operational data on the presence of a drug activist in the registration book of the Baku Police Department. The lawyers also asked to interrogate at a closed meeting those who gave operational information about the availability of drugs to Bakhyshly.
Prosecutor Ramiz Allahverdiyev opposed the petitions. The judge Hasan Ahmedov rejected the petitions and scheduled a substantive hearing on December 10.
Bakhyshly was detained on May 6, the police said that he had six grams of heroine. The activist himself denied the charges, saying that the police threw the drugs to him. On September 18, the court sentenced him to six years in prison.
A few days before his arrest, on May 3, at an event on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day at the grave of journalist Elmar Huseynov, Bakhyshly accused the country’s authorities of killing a journalist. His colleagues are sure that this caused his arrest. Human rights activists recognized Bakhyshli as a political prisoner
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