Today, the Khachmaz District Court chaired by Anar Sadigov began considering a claim against freelancer Jamil Mammadli. A lawsuit against him as a private criminal charge was filed by the head of the Executive Power of the neighboring Guba region Ziyaddin Aliyev. At the request of the lawyer, the consideration of the application on the merits was postponed to April 2.
Lawyer Shahin Mutallimov told Turan that despite the trial was announced open, no one was allowed to attend the hearings. The judge motivated this by a special quarantine regime, although people were allowed to attend meetings in other halls. At the same time, the judge granted the motion for a vision video and audio recording of the process.
The head of the region asks the court to bring the journalist to justice under Article 147-2 (defamation of a serious crime) of the Criminal Code.
“In fact, it is not me who should be tried, but the prosecutor’s office should investigate the facts stated on my YouTube channel and Facebook account,” Mammadli told Turan. With reference to local residents, Mammadli said that, based on his video materials, an investigation by the Prosecutor General’s Office was launched into the misappropriation of funds for public works by the local authorities. However, the prosecutor’s office failed to clarify this issue.
Mammadli is known as a freelance journalist covering the northern region of the country. For a long time he was a regional correspondent for the Azerbaijani service of Radio Liberty.
Turan
