Journalist Elchin Mamed detained in Azerbaijan

Elchin Mamed, the head of the NGO "Legal Enlightenment of Sumgait Youth" and the editor-in-chief of the "Yukselish Namine" (For Revival) website, is accused of theft. He claims that he was detained under a false complaint filed by a woman from Sumgait.

Today, at 11:00 local time, Elchin Mamed has been detained in connection with a criminal case instituted under Article 177.4.2 (theft with infliction of significant damage), Elchin Mamed told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Earlier, on March 29, Elchin Mamed spoke about the beginning of an investigation against him.

"At the end of last week, I was interrogated under a complaint filed by a woman from Sumgait [...]. On March 14, she addressed me with a request to provide her with legal assistance in connection with the non-enforcement of the court's decision in her favour. And 12 days later she filed a complaint against me and claimed that I allegedly stole jewellery items from her bag worth 7500 manats (4500 US dollars). This is utter nonsense. The question is why did she go to meet a stranger with jewellery in her bag? Earlier, the woman has already filed a false complaint against Anar Mamedov, an editor of the 'criminal.az' website," said Elchin Mamed.

Elchin Mamed has also associated the case against him with a critical report on the situation of human rights in Azerbaijan, released by the NGO led by him.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 30, 2020 at 01:38 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.