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Incident

Court holds preliminary hearing on criminal cases of Anar Mammadli and others

21 April 2014 10:01 (UTC +04:00)

At the hearing presided by judge Rauf Aliyev, Mammadli’s lawyer Elchin Sadigov raised a petition on letting Mammadli sit with his lawyers, not behind the bars. The judge sustained the petition.

Sadigov also raised petition on creating conditions for journalists’ recording the hearing and termination of the criminal case. Other lawyer of Mammadli, Fariz Namazli raised a petition on commutation of pre-trial detention and questioning extra witnesses.

The hearing was adjourned. Following this the judgment on holding a preliminary hearing was announced.

According to the judgment, petition on questioning extra witnesses was sustained, but others were rejected.

Hearing was scheduled for April 28.

According to the statement issued by the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office, on October 29, 2013, the criminal case was launched on the Criminal Code’s articles 192.2.2, 192.2.3, 213.2.1, 213.2.2. and 308.2 after receiving materials from the Ministry of Taxes and Ministry of Finance saying that officials of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center and International Cooperation of Volunteers Public Union got a great profit and evaded tax payments abusing their powers.

Necessary investigative actions were conducted. An inspection was carried out with the participation of experts of the relevant ministries and the Council on State Support to Non-Governmental Organizations with the view of specifying whether the accounting was conducted in accordance with the legislation.

The evidences collected as a result of the preliminary investigation and the interim report of the inspection arouse suspicion that on May, 2013, Anar Mammadli Asaf, the co-founder and chairman of Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center without legal registration, together with Suleymanli Bashir Suleyman, the executive director of the Center, agreed with Mammadov Elnur Akif, the head of International Cooperation of Volunteers Public Union, to officially register a grant agreement worth $276010 allocated by the U.S. National Democratic Institute in the name of the Public Union.

He is suspected of withdrawing together with Bashir Suleymanli $163250 transferred to the bank account of the latter after he was appointed as vice-president of the International Cooperation of Volunteers Public Union, announcing recruitment to the positions of manager, lawyer, expert at Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center without having the status of legal entity, paying salaries, service and rental fees from that money, failing to pay AZN 19535 VAT, Elnur Mammadov, head of International Cooperation of Volunteers Public Union, is suspected of forging signatures of founders.

As there are grounded suspicions that Anar Mammadli and Bashir Suleymanli committed the actions envisaged in articles 192.2.2, 213.1 and 308.2 and Elnur Mammadov committed the actions envisaged in articles 192.2.2, 213.1, 308.2 and 313, Bashir Suleymanli and Elnur Mammadov have been banned from leaving the country, Anar Mammadli has been sentenced to pre-trial detention.