ECtHR recognizes violation of Ilgar Mamedov's rights to fair trial

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has granted the complaint filed by Ilgar Mamedov, the leader of the Azerbaijani movement "Republican Alternative" (ReAl), by recognizing the violation of his rights to a fair trial. The ECtHR has obliged the Azerbaijani authorities to pay to Ilgar Mamedov 10,000 euros of compensation.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in March 2014, Ilgar Mamedov, the leader of the ReAl democratic opposition movement, was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment on the charge of organizing protests of Ismayilli residents.

The ECtHR has unanimously ruled that in the Ilgar Mamedov's case, Article 6 (the right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights was violated. This has been announced by the ECtHR's decision published today on the Court's website.

The ECtHR has found out that "the national courts did not notice or were silent about inconsistencies in the evidence used to sentence Ilgar Mamedov, despite repeated objections against erroneous or distorted evidence."

In particular, according to the ECtHR, only five months later, some of the policemen testified that Ilgar Mamedov incited protesters to violence. The ECtHR has also noted that at trial, one of the above policemen retracted his testimony given during the preliminary investigation and said that he had signed his testimony without even having read it.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.