Incident

Home page

Incident

Officers of State Border Service give testimony in Huseyn Arabulâ€™s trial

27 August 2009 14:39 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ramil Mammadli â€“ APA. The next hearing on the case of former president of Barmek-Azerbaijan Huseyn Arabul and five others has been held in the Court of Grave Crimes today. APA reports that Novruz Karimov presided over the hearing. Officers of State Border Service and taxi driver gave testimonies as witnesses.

Officer of Shamkir Border Unit of State Border Service Samit Azizov said on June 2, 2009, he approached a man in the border checkpoint â€œGirmizi Korpuâ€ and identified him.
â€œIt was Turkish citizen Huseyn Arabul. There was no seal in his passport confirming his leaving Azerbaijan and the term of his visa expired. His hair was red when we detained him, he wore like a fisherman,â€ he said.

Samit Azizov said Arabul was invited to the duty room.
â€œHe gave explanation and then was taken to the military unit. He gave contradictious testimonies concerning his crossing the border,â€ he said.
Following this, Azizov answered the questions of judges, prosecutor and defense.

Huseyn Arabul said Samit Azizov gave false testimony in the initial investigation and court. Officer of Shamkir Border Unit of State Border Service Elchin Valiyev said Huseyn Arabul offered him $30,000 in exchange for his release.
â€œOf course, I refused and reported about it to the supreme command,â€ he said.
He said Arabul was not under pressure while giving explanation.
Officer of Shamkir Border Unit of State Border Service Elchin Safarov said he witnessed it.

Taxi driver, Georgian Azerbaijani Shennik Veysalov also gave testimony.
Judge Karimov said commander of the military unit, Lieutenant-Colonel Arzu Huseynov sent a letter to court. Huseynov said in his letter that he missed the hearing due to the service job. The defense said Huseynov should participate in the hearing.

Judge said it will be considered in the next hearing.

The hearing will continue tomorrow.

Huseyn Arabul, Turkish citizen Ayhan Donmez, Azerbaijanis â€“ Mahir Latifov, Elnur Huseynov, Famil Guliyev, Ramal Alakbarov are accused of crossing the border illegally. According to the indictment, Huseyn Arabul got the false driver license under the name of Ahmet Arslan with his photo. Then he invited the Turkish citizen Irfan Altiparmak, who introduced himself as Afshar, planning to leave Azerbaijan for Kazakhstan in the trucks. But he didnâ€™t find persons who could assist them to realize his plan and decided to cross the Azerbaijan-Georgia borders. Arabul dyed his hair and lived in Shamkir and Gazakh under the name of Ahmad. He wore like a fisherman, had a sports bag and always carried a fishing-rod. But his plan failed, he was detained by Azerbaijani frontier guards while attempting to flee from the country.

In 2007, former president of Barmek-Azerbaijan Huseyn Arabul got five-year suspended sentence with paying AZN 1.370 million. The court also passed a decision banning Arabul from leaving Azerbaijan.