00:55, 17 March 2026

A Baku court announced the verdict in the case of Ryan and Mammadli.

French citizen Martin Ryan was sentenced to ten years in prison on charges of espionage, and Azerbaijani Azad Mammadli received 12 years in prison on charges of treason.

As "Caucasian Knot" reported, a Baku court has been considering the case of espionage against Martin Ryan and treason against Azad Mammadli since December 2024. Mammadli denied the charge of treason in court, declaring his innocence, while Ryan pleaded "partially guilty." In May 2025, Azad Mammadli told the court that a French citizen had tried to recruit him, and Ryan, in turn, said that Mammadli was interested in the prospects of cooperation with the French intelligence services.

French-British citizen Martin Ryan (also referred to in the media as Rian) was detained on December 4, 2023, and arrested on suspicion of spying for French intelligence. Ryan pleaded not guilty and claimed he was "deceived by the French intelligence services," according to his lawyer. Azerbaijani citizen Azad Mammadli, who was arrested along with Ryan, worked as a lawyer at the International Bank of Azerbaijan and moved to the UK in 2023. Mammadli was arrested two months after returning to Azerbaijan. Information on the case is completely classified, while in Azerbaijan, such accusations are often politically motivated, human rights activists pointed out.

The Baku Court of Grave Crimes found French citizen Martin Ryan guilty of espionage for France, and Azerbaijani citizen Azad Mammadli guilty of treason by collaborating with French intelligence.

Ryan was sentenced to 10 years in prison, while Mammadli was sentenced to 12 years. Both convicts will serve their sentences in a maximum-security correctional facility, Zerkalo.az reported on March 16.

The court established that Ryan, as the CEO of the company "Merkorama", was assigned by the French intelligence services to collect information about the production of weapons and ammunition in Azerbaijan, as well as about the recruitment of the Azerbaijani army during the Second Karabakh War in the fall of 2020. He was also interested in Azerbaijani military personnel who had trained abroad and spoke French, the possibilities of organizing secret money transfers within Azerbaijan, and Baku's military cooperation with third countries, in particular Great Britain, Algeria, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, China, Somalia, and the Central Asian states.

The investigation notes that the French intelligence officers (Directorate General for External Security - DGSE) who gave Ryan instructions had previously been declared persona non grata and expelled from Baku.

After completing his prison term, Martin Ryan must be expelled from Azerbaijan, the court ruled.

Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/421668