Details added (first version posted at 13:11)
BAKU, Azerbaijan, December 6. Another 19 people were released within the so-called ‘Tartar case’ in Azerbaijan, 10 of them were acquitted, the Prosecutor General's Office told Trend on December 6.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office, previously three criminal cases against 19 persons convicted on charges of high treason and other articles returned to court were reconsidered by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan due to newly detected circumstances based on the appeal of the prosecutor's office.
The decisions on the above criminal cases were canceled, and the cases were returned to the relevant courts.
Then the decisions in these cases were canceled by the respective courts and returned to the prosecutor, who was in charge of the procedural guidance of the preliminary investigation.
During the further investigation, all circumstances related to the criminal prosecution were thoroughly, fully, and objectively investigated, and since the guilt of these persons on charges of high treason wasn’t proven, the proceeding is carried out on acquittal grounds (Article 39.2 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan).
Within the proceeding, decisions were made to halt criminal prosecution against 10 persons on other episodes (crimes against military service, and others) and release them with the abolition of a measure of restraint in the form of arrest previously chosen against the persons.
Meantime, all the cases related to the deceased Mehman Huseynov and Elkhan Aghazada were thoroughly investigated, and decisions were made to terminate the criminal proceedings on acquittal grounds (Article 39.2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Republic of Azerbaijan).
The investigation team is conducting criminal proceedings against several military personnel who served at the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry's military units in Tartar, Aghdam and Beylagan directions. Thus, the team has conducted all-inclusive investigations against a group of servicemen who tortured alleged suspects to death, while interviewing them without proper authority and in violation of the criminal procedure rules, from May through June 2017.
Further information and updates on the investigation will be provided soon.