22:47, 16 May 2007

Azerbaijan: court rejects petition of Farkhad Aliev's advocates

Today, the Azerbaijani Court for Grave Crimes has rejected the petition of the advocates of Farkhad Aliev, ex-Minister for Economic Development of Azerbaijan, his brother Rafik Aliev, president of the "Azpetrol" group of companies, and 17 other defendants who are figurants of the criminal case, the APA reports.

On May 15, Ramiz Mamedov, one of the advocates of former Minister, expressed his protest against participation in the trial as state prosecutors of Bashir Dzhafarov and Nazir Bairamov. The human rights activists based his protest on the fact that the preliminary investigation was supervised by the State Office of Public Prosecutor of Azerbaijan, which had taken a biased stand towards defendants Farkhad Aliev and his brother, the IA "Trend" reports.

The advocate's petition was rejected, and this was announced before the start of today's session. The litigation is going on.