Azerbaijan court sentences Imran Aliyev to 10 years, Elgiz Gahraman to 9

The Baku Grave Crimes Court sentenced journalist Imran Aliyev to 10 years in prison and civic activist Elgiz Gahraman to 9 years on 12 November. In the same case, Meclis.info accountant Tamella Musayeva received an 8-year suspended sentence with a 4-year probation period.

Aliyev heads Meclis.info, a platform that published information on Azerbaijani lawmakers' activities, legislative initiatives, attendance and voting records. He was detained on 19 April 2024; Gahraman and Musayeva became defendants in the case in 2025 and were initially placed under police supervision.

The defendants were found guilty of offenses including money laundering and smuggling. The charges also included illegal entrepreneurship, tax evasion, document forgery and use of forged documents. The court upheld a civil claim by Azerbaijan’s State Tax Service against the defendants for 67,000 Azerbaijani manats.

Defendants deny guilt

All three defendants denied guilt. Aliyev links his prosecution to his leadership of Meclis.info and said no facts had been presented to support the smuggling accusation. He said he decided in 2023 to create the platform to monitor parliament and subsequently faced pressure. In their final statements, he and Gahraman called the charges unfounded and asked to be acquitted. Musayeva said she agreed with her lawyer’s defense.

Gahraman said 63 telephone conversations between him and Aliyev had been cited as evidence against him. He called that absurd, saying their calls and meetings were normal. He said he had taught mathematics and logic and now worked in data analytics.

Azerbaijani authorities have denied accusations that prosecutions are politically motivated, saying those detained face criminal charges.

Gahraman taken into custody

Gahraman’s relatives told Meydan TV that the court replaced his police supervision with detention. He was arrested immediately after the verdict and taken to the Baku Pre-trial Detention Centre. His relatives said he would serve his sentence in a strict-regime prison.

Gahraman had previously been imprisoned on drug-related charges that he denied and was released under a presidential pardon on 17 March 2019. He was arrested in August 2016 and sentenced to five years and six months in January 2017; the Supreme Court changed the charge and reduced his sentence to three years in November 2017. The NIDA Civic Movement said his arrest was politically motivated and followed a critical social-media post. On 13 January 2026, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on two complaints concerning his earlier detention and found violations of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights concerning the failure to investigate his torture allegations effectively and his confinement in a metal cage during hearings in that earlier case.