[RFE/RL] Eighteen men said to be members of an extremist Islamic group that sought to provoke unrest in order to seize power went on trial beginning on August 4 in Baku's Court for Serious Crimes. They face charges including murder, terrorism, inciting religious hatred, organizing mass unrest, and illegal possession of weapons. All of them reject those charges as fabricated; several say they were tortured in order to get them to incriminate themselves, fellow defendants, and opposition leaders.
The two most prominent defendants are Taleh Bagirzade (also known as Bagirov), a young Shiite cleric who heads the unregistered Movement for Muslim Unity, and Fuad Qahramanli, deputy chairman of the opposition Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (AHCP).
Bagirzade, who studied theology in Iran, has campaigned to uphold Muslim rights and openly criticized Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev. He was nabbed in late November 2015 together with 13 other men during a raid by police on a house in the village of Nardaran on the outskirts of Baku.
Nardaran has for decades been a bastion of Shiite Islam. Its estimated 8,000 residents regard as their supreme religious authority not Muslim Spiritual Board of Azerbaijan Chairman Sheikh-ul-Islam Allakh-Shukur Pashazade, but Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Seven people, including at least two police officers, were killed and several others injured during the police raid. According to officials, the men opened fire and hurled Molotov cocktails at the police. However, the accused say they were unarmed.
The same officials also say that Bagirzade created the Movement for Muslim Unity with the aim of overthrowing the government and establishing "a religious state under sharia law." He and his associates are said to have recruited supporters in the country and provided them with weapons, and to have conducted "illegal meetings" in Nardaran to discuss mobilizing the population in a violent uprising.
Qahramanli, who was not near Nardaran at the time of the raid, was detained at his home two weeks after it took place for comments about it that he posted on social media. He was initially charged with antistate propaganda and inciting religious hatred. Six months later, a further charge was brought against him of calling for civil disobedience and mass unrest. During testimony, Qahramanli said he was being tried solely for having expressed a critical opinion of the Azerbaijani authorities.