Court refuses to change verdict to Azerbaijani citizens for aiding terrorism

A Baku court has upheld the verdict to the Azerbaijani citizens who had earlier been found guilty of complicity with the "Islamic State" (IS or ISIL), a terrorist organization banned in Russia by the court, and sentenced to terms ranging from two and a half to eight years in prison.

Citizens suspected of involvement in terrorism are regularly arrested in Azerbaijan. Thus, in October 2019, Bakhram Gyulyalyev (Abu Ibragim Dagestani) was extradited to Azerbaijan from Pakistan. In September 2020, a court found him guilty of training militants how to make bombs.

The court judgement is illegal, Elchin Sadygov, one of defendants' advocates, has stated, adding that the convicts continue their hunger strike and even refuse to drink water for the third day.

Earlier, the Baku Court for Grave Crimes considered the case of 11 Azerbaijani citizens accused of complicity with the ISIL, and sentenced them to terms from 2.5 to 8 years in prison. The defendants themselves claimed their non-involvement in IS' activities, the "Massa.az" reports.

The convicts' parents have stated that the punishment was unfair and demanded to release them. They also expressed concern for the health of their children. "At the trial, they talked about torture, everyone cried, but no one gave a legal assessment of these facts. They are treated worse than prisoners of war," the "Massa.az" has quoted one of the protesters.

The Orientalists interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" have noted that after the defeat of militant groupings in Syria and Iraq many IS militants, including natives of Azerbaijan, moved to Afghanistan, but the flow of volunteers recruited from Azerbaijan itself has already dried up.