NEW YORK: The Azerbaijan Supreme Court has refused to abide by a binding European Court of Human Rights judgment to release a wrongfully imprisoned, outspoken journalist, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities used trumped up charges to continue to hold Eynulla Fatullayev, one of the country's most prominent journalists. On November 11, 2010, the extraordinary plenary meeting of the Azerbaijani Supreme Court reviewed the October European Court of Human Rights findings that Fatullayev had been wrongly charged and imprisoned. The Supreme Court dropped the criminal charges involved in the case, but ignored the key requirement in the judgment to free Fatullayev immediately. Fatullayev remains imprisoned on drug possession charges brought while he was in prison, which many observers consider bogus. “The government has a clear obligation to release Fatullayev immediately and end this terrible miscarriage of justice,” said Giorgi Gogia, South Caucasus researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Instead, the authorities are fabricating new ways to keep him imprisoned and openly flaunting their international commitments.” The European Court of Human Rights is the court for the Council of Europe, and the ultimate arbiter of compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights. It found in April that Azerbaijan had violated Fatullayev's right to freedom of expression in a grossly disproportionate manner by imprisoning him, and, in an exceptional move, called for his immediate release. On October 4, the decision became final and legally binding on Azerbaijan, after the government's unsuccessful attempt to appeal the judgment to the court's Grand Chamber. Fatullayev has been in prison since April 2007, following his conviction for civil and criminal defamation for an internet posting about an episode during the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Six months after the first conviction, he was found guilty of threatening terrorism and inciting ethnic hatred, based on another set of articles, resulting in a total sentence of eight-and-a- half years. The European Court held that each conviction was a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. He had also been convicted of tax evasion during the second trial. In its review of the case on November 11, the Azerbaijan Supreme Court decided to drop the defamation charges, as required by the European Court, but increased his sentence for tax evasion from the initial four months handed down by the court, to two years and two months, equivalent to the time Fatullayev has served. However, the Supreme Court refused to implement the European Court's instruction to free him immediately, using the spurious drug possession charges as an excuse to hold him. Those charges stem from a cell inspection on December 29, 2009, when guards allegedly found 0.223 grams of heroin in Fatullayev's shoes and coat sleeve. On July 6, 2010, a Baku court convicted him of illegal possession of narcotics for personal use. Fatullayev appealed the decision. Since Fatullayev was in prison at the time of the July conviction, the lower court had no reason to issue any restraining measures, such as remand to custody. However, on November 5, the Court of Appeals sentenced Fatullayev to two months in pretrial custody while the conviction is under appeal, providing grounds for his continued detention. The Court of Appeals could have released him pending its hearing on the drug charges. Human Rights Watch called on the Azerbaijan authorities to drop all charges against Fatullayev and free him immediately. HRW
