CCPR/C/112/D/1972/2010
1989, a police investigation revealed that some of his colleagues were part of a gang
involved in violent crimes since 1979. The gang operated in Azerbaijan, Russia and the
Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. On 5 September 1989, the gang reportedly killed
F. Shiraliyev, the Chief Director of the Bakipive manufacturing group. The author submits
that some of the gangsters testified, under torture, that he had committed the murder. He
was arrested on 11 September 1989. Although he was accused of a common crime, the
author was detained in isolation in a prison of the State Security Committee and at the
Police Department of the Absheron district, Baku city. He was severely tortured so that he
would confess the murder and, as a result of that torture, his ribs were broken and one of his
kidneys was damaged. On 26 December 1989, he attempted to commit suicide in the State
Security Committee prison.
2.2
The author maintains that, during the investigation, several pieces of evidence were
disregarded, such as: an alibi provided by a neighbour for the author for the time of the
commission of the murder; conflicting conclusions of forensic ballistic expert analyses, one
of which stated that the murder weapon was the author’s revolver and the other, conducted
by an expert of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR) in October 1990, stating that no definite conclusion could be made on that issue;
and the testimony of the author’s employer, stating that he was present at work during most
of the time when the crime had been committed.
2.3
The Investigation Department of the Office of Procurator of the Azerbaijan Soviet
Socialist Republic charged the author under the Criminal Codes of three Socialist Republics
(the Criminal Codes of Azerbaijan, of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and
of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic). The case was tried before the Baku City Court.
During a trial hearing, the author and his four co-defendants retracted their confessions,
alleging that they had been forced to confess under torture. They demanded the
investigation of their torture allegations and the examination of additional evidence, but the
court refused and used teargas against the defendants, who were locked up in a cage. The
author also alleges that his lawyers were “pressed” by the Bar Association and one of them
was beaten. As a “gesture of protest” the defendants refused the assistance of the lawyers,
since their services had become “useless”. The judge presiding over the trial removed the
five defendants from the courtroom for “violation of order” and, for the next four months,
both the author and his lawyers were barred from attending the court hearings. 1 The author
maintains that the above constituted a violation of the domestic criminal procedure which
requires the accused who might be sentenced to the death penalty to be present during the
trial.
2.4
On 18 October 1991, Azerbaijan declared its independence with the Constitutional
Act No. 222-XII on the State Independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Article 15 of the
Constitutional Act prohibited the application of any foreign law on the territory of
Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, on 12 November 1991, the author was convicted in absentia and
sentenced to death by the Baku City Court, based on charges under the Criminal Codes of
Azerbaijan, of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and of the Georgian Soviet
Socialist Republic. That sentence was final and could not be appealed to a higher court.
According to article 402 of the Criminal Procedural Code of Azerbaijan in force at the time,
court sentences that had entered into force could be reviewed only upon the request of the
Procurator General, the President of the Supreme Court or their deputies. In the author’s
case, none of those officials requested that the case be reviewed.
2.5
The author was detained in Bayil prison in the ward used only for prisoners on death
row. The author submits that he was subjected to the “syndrome of death row” for six and a
1
The author provides a copy in Russian of a newspaper describing the event.
3