Baku Today, Azerbaijan
June 28 2004

Azeri MPs Urge General Prosecutor’s Office to Release Imprisoned KLO
Activists

Baku Today 28/06/2004 19:10

Five members of the Azerbaijani parliament urged the General
Prosecutor’s Office on Monday to release the five imprisoned members
of the Karabakh Liberation Organization (KLO) – who have been
sentenced to two month in jail for their unsanctioned anti-Armenian
protest early last week – on bail, ANS reported.

The MPs, Sabir Rustamkhanli, Zalimkhan Yagub, Gudrat Hasanguliyev,
Mammad Nuriyev and Mais Safarli, said in an appeal to the General
Prosecutor’s Office that taking into account the sentenced KLO
activists’ emotional state – their anger by the occupation of their
territories by Armenians – they have to be freed.

The Sheik of the Caucasus Muslims, Allahshukur Pashazade, also
supported the initiative, saying that Armenian atrocities during the
Karabakh war are to blame for the protests staged by several dozen
KLO activists against the Armenian participation of a Baku-hosted
conference for NATO’s Cooperative Best Effort-2004 exercises on
Tuesday.

Baku’s Nasimi District court on Thursday found the KLO chairman Akif
Naghi, along with four other activists of this organization, Mursal
Hasanov, Ilkin Qurbanov, Rovshan Fatiyev and Manaf Kerimov, culpable
of resisting police, violating public order and hooliganism.

The KLO members clashed with police on Tuesday near Baku’s Grand
Hotel Europe, where the NATO conference was taking place. Although
police stopped most of the protestors from nearing the hotel, a group
of young KLO members managed to push through police cordons and broke
into the conference hall. There was no report of serious injuries on
either side in the incident.