Advocate treats testimonies given by policemen in "Nardaran case" as contradictory

On August 25, the trial in the "Nardaran case" was interrupted because of the absence of advocates of a number of defendants. The defence believes that the court has intentionally suspended the hearings to give law enforcers enough time to get better prepared for the trial.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on August 24, the court hearing in the case was interrupted because of the verbal quarrel between the participants of the court hearing. The defendants accused policemen of use of torture.

According to Aiten Mamedova, an observer of the newspaper "Azadlyg", defendant Talekh Bagirzade, the leader of the movement "Muslim Unity", has noted that he has always been standing against the construction of a religious state in Azerbaijan.

Abil Bairamov, an advocate of defendant Zakir Mustafaev, believes that the judges have intentionally suspended the trial. The advocate believes that not all the advocates will attend the court hearing on August 26.

According to the advocate, staff members of the Chief Department for Combating Organized Crime (known as GUBOP) conducted a special operation "unprofessionally".

Furthermore, the defender has also noted that his client was detained only after the complaint to the police. Meanwhile, Zakir Mustafaev "was severely tortured and beaten with a rubber truncheon on the head." As a result, he made a confession which he retracted at the trial.

Yalchin Imanov, an advocate of five defendants, including Talekh Bagirzade and Abbas Guseinov, has noted that the Prosecutor's Office came to the conclusion that no signs of violence had been identified. Meanwhile, in the cases where it was impossible to deny the signs of violence, the prosecutors concluded that they had occurred "as a result of resistance" to policemen.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.