Azerbaijani media: Famous journalist Khadija Ismayilova conditionally released from prison

Host of RFE/RL Azerbaijani service, Khadija Ismayilova, has been released by the Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court decision, the Azerbaijani service of Radio Liberty reports.

According to the information, the Supreme Court changed the journalist’s sentence from imprisonment to conditional sentence. By the Supreme Court’s decision, Khadija Ismayilova has been exculpated according to Articles 179 (Assignment or Waste) and 308 (Abusing official powers).

The court has held to change the punishment from imprisonment to conditional sentence for a term of 3.5 years.

On 1 September 2015, Baku Court of Grave Crimes handed down a 7.6 years prison sentence to the Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova. The court found her guilty of the Articles 179 (embezzlement and misappropriation), 192 (illegal business), 213 (tax evasion) and 308 (abuse of power) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Ismayilova was cleared from the article 125 (incitement to commit suicide) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. Earlier, the public prosecutor, RamazanHadiyev, had claimed 9 years of imprisonment for Khadija Ismayilova. The journalist was detained on 5 December 2014, which was followed by a wave of condemning statements by a number of international organisations and influential representatives from various states, who claimed her arrest was politically motivated.