A court in Azerbaijan on Monday sentenced a prominent journalist to six years in jail for spying for arch-enemy Armenia, in a case slammed by rights groups as politically motivated.
The court for serious crimes in the capital Baku “found Rauf Mirkadyrov guilty of high treason, namely of spying for Armenia, and sentenced him to six years in prison,” the journalist’s lawyer Fuad Agayev told AFP.
“My client rejects the accusations as politically motivated,” he added.
Mirkadyrov, 54, has been held in pre-trial detention since his arrest in April 2014 in Baku after he was deported from Turkey.
Prosecutors claimed that Armenia’s secret services recruited him in 2008, and he supplied Yerevan with state secrets.
The prize-winning journalist’s arrest last year sparked widespread condemnation from international rights groups and the West.
Human Rights Watch has said Mirkadyrov was being “punished for his outspoken views” and that his prosecution sent “a chilling message to others that dissent will not be tolerated.”
