The director of the website “dunyaninsesi.az”, Arshad Ibrahimov, who has been in prison since December 2023 on extortion by threat charges, was sentenced to 8 years on January 24, 2025.
Ibrahimov refutes allegations leveled against him. During his defense, Ibrahimov said the charges were bogus and were linked to the website’s reports of police misconduct in various districts across the country he has reported.
In his final statement, Ibrahimov claimed he had been under pressure from the Organized Crime Department for a long time due to his website’s reports on police misconduct. In 2014, he was arrested by the Organized Crime Department and convicted under the same criminal article. At the time, he was sentenced to 11 years. The sentence was later reduced to 10 years on appeal and then to 5 years by the Supreme Court. He was released early through a presidential pardon.
Ibrahimov also said that a year before his most recent arrest, he was detained, held for a day, and forced to delete critical articles about the police. Ibrahimov said that the head of the department, Abulfat Rzayev, warned him that if he continued publishing adverse reports about the police, he would be arrested—which eventually happened.
During the hearing, Ibrahimov’s lawyer, Zabil Gahramanov, argued that people who the website editor allegedly blackmailed said they had no complaints against Ibrahimov. During the testimony, they said the Organized Crime Department pressured them to file a complaint.
His lawyer announced that they would appeal the verdict.