Written by Shahla Ismailova/ HRH Baku on the basis of information from TURAN Information Agency, Yeni Musavat newspaper, Azadlig newspaper, the Committee to Defend the Rights of Sakit Zahidov, the Institute for Reporter Freedom and Safety; photo from Turan Information Agency

The satirical journalist, Sakit Zahidov, with a politically-motivated criminal drug case, was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment after 3,5 months of arrest. The efforts of national and international organizations could only bring to the “generous” change from the 12 years of imprisonment for the drug dealing to 36 months of imprisonment of the father of five children (wife’s photo on the right), who in reality was guilty of disclosing the high ranking officials in corruption. (5-OCT-2006)

Arrest
Sakit Zahidov has been in police custody since he was arrested on 23 June 2006, while getting into taxi. He was initially charged with possession of a large amount of drugs with intent to resell it. On the day of Zahidov´s arrest, 10 grams of heroine was found in Zahidov´s pocket while he was being searched in the police station. However, Zahidov had always maintained that the illegal substance was planted on him by police and that he neither used, nor dealt drugs.

Trial
1,5 months of the trial period, abundant with contradictory testimonies, was monitored by dozens of representatives of national and international organizations, engaged human rights and freedom of speech.

In a small break during the last court hearing (26 September), the prosecution changed the drug dealing charge against Zahidov to a drug use charge, as they were unable to provide any evidence that Zahidov dealt drugs. However, there was also no evidence to back up the drug use charge.
 
Police admitted in court that an “express” urine drug test given to Zahidov on the day of his arrest came back clean. And doctors called to testify in court denied ever performing a drug test on Zahidov. According to them, statements they wrote in medical documents that Zahidov was a drug user, were based only subjective, visual assessments. Zahidov`s lawyer said a blood sample taken from Zahidov, which according to the authorities showed traces of illicit substances, was in fact used to carry out an HIV test.

Sentence
On 4 October 2006, despite of all the efforts of national and international organizations to prevent another subjective sentence, the judge of Grave Crime Court Azer Orujov sentenced Sakit Zahidov to three years of imprisonment. On the court Sakit Zahidov made a statement, which is available at the Human Rights House website. “I have never used drugs. Drugs were put secretly into my pocket by police officer Adil
Alekperov, the police officer who led my arrest.   I was arrested on false accusations. I do not ask
court to make my sentence lighter, I just want it to pass an objective decision,” Zahidov said. Full text of the statement is available at http://humanrightshouse.org/Articles/7544.html

Committee to Defend the Rights of Sakit Zahidov
The enormous efforts of the Committee to Defend the Rights of Sakit Zahidov and its chairman Emin Huseynov (on the right), who acted very operatively throughout the whole period of detention and trial of Sakit Zahidov, should be stressed. They have written a number of appeals and statements, addressed from the high instances on national level, including the president administration, up to the influential international organization. The statements were also addressed to the presidents of the countries, which had to visit Azerbaijan in the period, and urged them to call Azerbaijani authorities to stop tension towards the freedom of speech.

Reaction on international community
“Azerbaijan´s opposition journalists are often the victims of violence or arbitrary arrests. Until now, the authorities have shown no sign of any real will to put a stop to the tension, and it cannot be ruled out that this arrest is linked to a policy of cracking down on dissident journalists” was the standpoint of the Reporters without Borders I their release, dated on 27 June 2006.

Throughout the whole period of Sakit Zahidov’s case, the international organizations, working on human rights and freedom of speech, expressed their concern in the general situation of freedom of speech in Azerbaijan and called Azerbaijani authorities to promote just and impartial investigation on the case. Among the reacted international organizations on the case were Human Rights House (18 August, 01 September, 16 September), Reporters without Borders (June 27, August 4, September 22), Amnesty International (July 1, August 10), International Committee to Protect Journalists (July 12, July 20), OSCE Representative on Media Freedom Miklos Haraszti (July 12, September 4), Article 19 (July 27), the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (August 4), Voice of America (August 19), PACE Rapportuer Andreas Herkel (August 31) and so on.