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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Azerbaijan arrests head of independent vote monitor |
| 2013-12-18 |
[Al Ahram] Azerbaijani authorities have nabbedMaw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! the head of an independent election monitoring group after it criticised presidential polls that secured a new term for strongman Ilham Aliyev, one of his colleagues said Tuesday. A Baku court on Monday ordered Anar Mammadli, chairman of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDS), to spend three months in pre-trial detention in connection with an investigation into alleged tax evasion. "We were summoned to the prosecutor's office as part of the investigation that was started in October," EMDS executive director Bashir Suleymanli told AFP. "I was let go two hours later and then the state-appointed lawyer called to say that Anar Mammadli had been arrested," he said. British Foreign Secretary William Hague -- in Baku on Tuesday for the signing ceremony of major deal that will see Azerbaijan export natural gas to Europe -- said he had raised the issue of Mammadli's arrest with Aliyev. "I expressed my concern," Hague told news hounds. US Ambassador Richard Morningstar said Washington was "deeply troubled" by the arrest and called for Mammadli's immediate release. |
| Posted by:Fred |