European Parliament to adopt resolution about abducted Azerbaijani journalist

The European Parliament plans to adopt a resolution about abducted Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Mukhtarli on 15 June. According to parliament’s website, MEPs will also discuss the situation of media freedom in Azerbaijan. 

Mukhtarli was last seen in Georgia by his friend on the evening of 29 May. After failing to return home, he resurfaced again in Azerbaijan charged with what his lawyer calls ‘bogus charges’. His lawyer Elchin Sadigov told reporters that Mukhtarli had been kidnapped outside his flat on Tbilisi’s Chonkadze Street by four Georgian speaking men.

On 9 June Elman Nasirov, a member of Azerbaijan’s parliament who also sits on parliament’s human rights committee said in an interview with the Azerbaijani office of RFE/RL that the arrest of Afgan Mukhtarli was a ‘successful operation’ between Georgian and Azerbaijani intelligence agencies. He accused Mukhtarli of being a member of an anti-government group in Georgia and said he was ‘traitor to the country’.

The State Security Service of Georgia rejected the claim. ‘The State Security Service categorically denies information stated by [Nasirov] and rules out any connection with the case of Afgan Mukhtarli’, their statement reads, adding that the Interior Ministry is investigating the abduction.

Baku’s Sabail District Court imposed three months of pretrial detention on Mukhtarli on 31 May. He is charged with smuggling €10,000 ($11,200), border trespass, and disobeying border guards.