Sources:
www.rferl.org
,contact.az
On Thursday, July 30 The Baku Court on Grave Crimes held a hearing on the case of Asif Yusifli, a high-ranking member of Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (AFPF),
RFE/RL
reports. Yusifli was sentenced to 7 years and 6 months in jail for fraud and forgery. AFPF is an opposition party of Azerbaijan.
The opposition activist was arrested in November 2014. According to
contact.az
, Asif Yusifov was detained on charges of fraud (Article 178) and forgery (Article 320) of the Criminal Code. Earlier in 2010, victim Farida Zulfugarova took a legal action against Yusifli for not repaying her 6500 manat that she had given him to organize her trip to Ukraine. However, he was unable to arrange the trip and repaid her part of the money. According to Yusifli, later he got into an accident and could not return her the rest of the money on time. His lawyer stated: “The investigation motivated it as fraud, although there is no evidence of fraud.” Yusifli denied the charges, and said his arrest was politically motivated.
