Anar Bayramli’s attorney, Anar Ghasemlu, also said that the presiding judge had refused to allow news coverage of the second court session and disrupted questions against the case.
According to local sources, the contradictory testimonies of a false police witness proved that Bayramli had been framed by the police.
Ghasemlu added that the court uses a different witness in each hearing to cover up the falsehoods and contradictory accounts of witnesses.
Bayramli’s second court session was also attended by some prominent human rights activists, including Zartosht Alizadeh and Arezu Abdullah.
His lawyer reiterated that the next court session will be held on June 1, adding that the charge of carrying drugs is unfounded as it was revealed during the first hearing. He said that his client is not addicted, but a journalist and a prisoner of conscience, whose detention is based on fabricated allegations.
The IRIB correspondent has also denied the charges, saying that political bias and his professional journalistic activities are the reason for his imprisonment. He has also asserted that he has never come across a person, who has claimed at the court to be among the police officers, who arrested him.
Iran, a number of Azeri political parties, Amnesty International, and other human rights organizations have condemned the detention of the IRIB employee.
On February 18, Azerbaijan’s police and plainclothes forces arrested Bayramli in the capital city of Baku and transferred him to the Central Police Department on charges of “carrying illicit drugs.”
The case of the journalist comes amid a new wave of arrests of Muslim activists and anti-government protestors in the Caspian Sea littoral state.
MHB/MN/HN
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