Zahir Fahraddin oglu Asgarov – believer Date of arrest: 3 June 2022 Charge: Article 274 (High treason) of the Criminal Code of the Azerbaijan Republic.
On 4 June 2022, the Baku City Sabayil District Court issued a ruling: to apply a preventive measure against Zahir Asgarov in the form of arrest for a period of 4 months.
The period of detention in custody during the investigation has been subsequently extended times Sentence: On 3 July 2024, the Baku City Grave Crimes Court sentenced to 16 years in prison Judge: Siyavush Hajiyev Place of detention: Penal Colony № 11 in Baku City Binagadi District Conclusion: According to the prosecution, in 2012, Zahir Asgarov went to the city of Qom City in Iran to study where he met a certain Ali who was a secret service officer.
Subsequently, Zahir Asgarov fulfilled the instructions of the intelligence officers up to 2022, thus causing harm to the security and sovereignty of the Azerbaijan.
He passed on the information about employees working in the oil sector, as well as opposition citizens.
Besides, there were also transferred the general information on the structure and activity of the Caspian Sea Shipping Company, the telephone numbers of individuals trained in the city of Qom City, military training on the Caspian Sea, etc.
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Asgarov, interrogated at the trial, did not plead guilty to the charges and testified that as a journalist and online employee of the ‘IRNA News’ agency covering the South Caucasus, he sent the agency not only information about social, political, military and economic processes 118 taking place in Azerbaijan but also about events taking place in Russia and Armenia.
It was his journalistic work.
He pointed out that the individuals whose names had been listed in the indictment, calling them special services officers, in reality had not been as such, since no evidence had been provided in the criminal case to support that assumption.
Zahir Asgarov testified that he had not committed any offence against Azerbaijan but was only engaged in journalistic activities.
The information he sent to the news agency was taken from various publicly available websites.
Zahir Asgarov denied that he had passed information about the steamer to anyone, and that he had photographed it.
