Azeri court jails youth activists

Turan news agency
12 Jul 06

Baku, 12 July: Judge Tofiq Pasayev of the Court for Serious Crimes
today passed a sentence on the three leaders of the Yeni Fikir (New
Thought) opposition youth movement.

The court found the leader of the organization, Ruslan Basirli, and
his deputies Ramin Tagiyev and Said Nuri guilty under Article 278 of
the Criminal Code (coup attempt).

Ruslan Basirli was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, Ramin
Tagiyev – to four years and Said Nuri to five years’ suspended
imprisonment with a probation period of three years.

Thus, the court recognized the arguments of the prosecution that the
Yeni Fikir movement was intending to seize power in the country by
force. By way of confirmation, the court pointed to the testimony of
a number of witnesses and video recordings.

It is notable that the sentence was read out in the absence of lawyers
who were not invited to the trial. At the same time, the staff of
the court did everything possible to let members of the public and
journalists find out about the sentence as late as possible.

It must be remembered that the trial of Yeni Fikir leaders started
on 31 March 2006. The charges were based on a hidden video tape made
in Tbilisi during Basirli’s meeting with two people, one of whom
was allegedly Armenian. The Armenian gave Basirli 2,000 dollars to
"develop democracy" in Azerbaijan. Later on, this tape was used by
the investigation to accuse Basirli of cooperating with the Armenian
intelligence service.

[Passage omitted: Other details of the investigation]