The dark circumstances around the attempted murder of the mayor of Azerbaijan’s second city have yet to be uncovered, and many seemingly uninvolved people continue to await justice.
https://eurasianet.org-Heydar Isayev
Relatives of those convicted in the murky “Ganja case” hold a protest in August 2021 at the Presidential Administration building in Baku. (photo: screenshot, Turan News Agency report)
A man convicted of attempting to murder the mayor of Ganja, Azerbaijan’s second-largest city, has started a hunger strike in support of several other people convicted – unjustly, he says – of involvement in the attack.
The convict, Yunis Safarov, appeared in court on January 26, and at the hearing announced that he had been on hunger strike since three days earlier, his lawyer, Bakhtiyar Hajiyev told local news agency Turan after the trial.
Safarov has admitted his guilt in the attack, saying he was moved to try to kill the former mayor, Elmar Valiyev, because of the latter’s “cruelty against Ganja residents” and the indifference of the central government to the many complaints Safarov had made, he said during his sentencing hearing in August 2021.
But nine other men who also have been convicted in the same case continue to maintain their innocence, both in the attempted murder and in other charges that the state has brought against them, including terrorism.
Safarov also denies more than 30 other charges related to the case, including terrorism, creating an armed group, drug possession, and attempting to overthrow the constitutional order of Azerbaijan. He is appealing his conviction on those charges.
During the hearing at the Baku Court of Appeal, several of those other convicts and their lawyers also were present, and Safarov said that he had begun a hunger strike because of the “unfair court rulings” as the others were not involved in the assassination attempt, Hajiyev said. He also disputed charges that he and the others had possessed weapons and had formed an “organized criminal unit” before committing the crime.
“The truth is that Safarov had looked for a weapon for some time to carry out the plot, and didn’t find one. Then he attacked a police officer, took his gun and committed the crime,” Hajiyev said. “In addition, they had ruled that Safarov intended to kill several people, while he wanted to kill only one.”
Hajiyev also said that Safarov was not in good health and that he hoped his client would “stop the hunger strike soon.”
The next trial in the case was scheduled for February 9.
The ongoing court hearings have done little to illuminate the strange circumstances around the 2018 attack. After Safarov attacked Valiyev, the government quickly accused him of being part of an Islamist conspiracy organized from abroad. A week after the attack, a small group of Safarov supporters held a demonstration, and two police officers were reported killed. The authorities then rounded up more than 70 suspects, and at least 10 of them were killed.
In addition to the nine who were convicted along with Safarov, and who were sentenced to between 18 and 20 years in prison, many others were convicted for shorter terms. Only 10 were released.
Valiyev, meanwhile, recovered from the attack and now reportedly lives in Baku.
Heydar Isayev is a journalist from Baku.