BAKU, July 27 (Reuters) - Two co-founders of an independent Azerbaijani online TV station, three of its journalists and four activists were each sentenced to jail terms of up to 15 years on Monday over financial crimes, in a case that has raised Western concerns over press freedom.
Akif Gurbanov, who started Toplum TV in 2016, got 15 years, while his colleague Alasgar Mammadli got 14, defence lawyers said. All the defendants had dismissed the charges as politically motivated and their lawyers said they would appeal.
Azerbaijan has detained a string of independent reporters in recent years. Several have faced trial on charges unrelated to journalistic activity, such as smuggling.
Authorities in the South Caucasus country say the journalists had real cases to answer.
“We will file an appeal. The trial as a whole was unfair,” Elchin Sadigov, a defence lawyer for journalist Elmir Abbasov, told Reuters.
“None of the motions submitted by the defence was granted, and the proceedings were conducted in a one-sided manner.”
Toplum TV is one of the few remaining independent online media outlets in Azerbaijan, covering politics, corruption, human rights and social issues.
Police raided its offices and several other locations in Baku in March 2024, initially detaining a number of its employees and associates. Several were subsequently placed in pre-trial detention on smuggling charges.
Prosecutors later added charges including illegal entrepreneurship, money laundering, tax evasion and document forgery.
Azerbaijani authorities have rejected accusations that prosecutions of journalists are politically motivated.
Media rights group Reporters Without Borders ranked Azerbaijan 171 out of 180 countries for press freedom in its 2026 rankings, down from 167 a year earlier.
In 2024, the U.S. State Department said it was deeply troubled by the news of arrests during the raid of Toplum TV's offices, and called on Azerbaijan to end the harassment of those exercising their fundamental freedoms.
(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
