Hamza Mehman oglu Mammadli Date of arrest: 1 June 2023 Charge: Articles 214-2 (Public calls for terrorism) and 281.2 (Public appeals directed against the state, committed repeatedly or by group of persons) of the Criminal Code of the Azerbaijan Republic.
On 1 June 2023, the Baku City Sabayil District Court issued an order to detain Hamza Mammadli for 28 days whilst the investigation period.
The term of detention during the investigation was subsequently extended several times.
At the trial, Hamza Mammadli did not plead guilty to the charges and asked the Court to dismiss the investigator's petition and the prosecutor's demand to impose a preventive measure in the form of remand in custody.
Sentence: On 7 January 2025, the Baku City Court for Serious Crimes sentenced to 6 years in prison Judge: Sabuhi Huseynov Place of detention: Pre-trial Detention Center of the State Security Service 220 Conclusion: Hamza Mammadli (born in 1991) left Azerbaijan and moved to Germany in 2015.
There, he obtained a diploma in medicine.
In December 2022, he got a German citizenship.
Since February 2023, he has been working as a doctor's assistant at one of the clinics in Kaiserslautern.
On 1 June 2023, H.Mammadli returned from Germany to Azerbaijan and was immediately detained by the Azerbaijani State Security Service (SSS) officers at the airport.
A day later, his parents tried to find out about their son applying to the SSS.
There, the appointed state lawyer informed them that back in 2018, the SSS opened a criminal case against Hamza Mammadli and accused him in involvement of supporting the July 2018 events in Ganja.
Due to the fact that H.Mammadli was outside of Azerbaijan, on 15 September 2023, the SSS suspended the criminal case and declared him wanted.
But following his detention, the suspended criminal case has been resumed.
According to the SSS indictment, H.Mammadli, while living in Germany, was a member of the ‘Council of the National Association of Azerbaijanis in Europe’ and had been engaged in active political activity.
Along with the leader of this association, Habil Rzayev, they created a special Facebook account and called for riots in the city of Ganja.
Only at the end of September 2023, his parents were able to meet Hamza who told them that he had not understood why he had been arrested and what he had been accused of.
He had never been involved in political activities in Germany, he was not a member of any organisations, never met Qabil Rzayev, didn’t have any Facebook page concerning the events in Ganja and was not aware of Ganja events in July 2018.
According to his parents, Hamza was subjected to serious pressure at the SSS and was in such a state saying to his parents “I cannot tolerate any more and I am ready to admit everything I am accused of’.
Hamza Mammadli's brother, Ertogrul Mammadov, said that his family had been waiting for the Court fairness until the very last day, ‘We believed that fairness had not vanished, that fairness would prevail, that they themselves would realise their mistake.
But we did not observe any fairness".
Mammadli's lawyer, Adam Mammadov, said that the charges had been based solely on assumptions and it had completely fallen apart at the trial, "According to the prosecution, in connection with the events in Ganja in 2018, my client allegedly called for riots on social media, but the investigation failed to prove it.
They did not have any evidence.
Thirty-two people who had written comments on Facebook in connection with the events in Ganja in 2018 were invited by the prosecution, and testified that they hadn't known Hamza Mammadli." Nevertheless, the Court ruled in favour of the prosecution and sentenced an innocent man to a long-term imprisonment. 221 GROUP № 12 LIFE TERM SENTENCED – 12 persons Clarification on Life Term Sentenced In 1993-1997 the ruling regime of Azerbaijan condemned a large group of veterans of Karabakh conflict – soldiers and police officers for political reasons to death under the Criminal Code approved by the law of the Azerbaijan SSR on 8 December 1960.
All convicts were tortured, some died in prison before the trial.
On 10 February 1998, the Parliament of the Azerbaijan Republic adopted the law “On amending the Criminal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code, and the Correction-Labor Code”, to abolish the death penalty in Azerbaijan.
Article 4 of this law stated that the punishment of persons sentenced to the death penalty prior to the law taking force, shall be replaced with a sentence of life imprisonment.
In fact, death penalty was replaced with a type of punishment that was not enshrined in any legislation at the time.
The new Criminal Code of Azerbaijan Republic, which provides for the punishment of life imprisonment, entered into force in 2000.
The old Criminal Code, which was in force until 2000, did not provide for life imprisonment, but for the death penalty and a maximum term of 15 years of imprisonment.
Therefore, all persons sentenced to the death penalty before 2000 should have to replace the penalty to 15 years of imprisonment or to judge again.
It is not legally lawful for them to replace the death penalty for life imprisonment without trial and a court verdict on the basis of a decision of Parliament.
When Azerbaijan joined to the Council of Europe in 2001, the Institute for Peace and Democracy presented a list of 716 political prisoners to the CoE experts.
This list included also mentioned above 14 people.
All of them were found for political motives.
Former Special Police Detachment members – 6 persons
