BAKU -- Jailed Azerbaijani activist Baxtiyar Haciyev has been additionally charged with evading taxes, social security contributions, and health insurance fees, Haciyev's lawyer, Elcin Sadyqov, said on November 7.
"The new accusation is based on an assumption that profits from Haciyev’s private company should be equated to the average profits of similar companies, without an exact accounting of his firm’s real turnover," Sadyqov said.
Baku-based rights defender Rufat Safarov said the goal of the new charge was most likely to justify Haciyev’s pretrial detention as all pretrial incarceration terms allowed by law have expired.
Haciyev, who was born in 1982, was arrested in early December last year and charged with hooliganism and contempt of court. He rejects the charges.
In June, investigators added charges of “illegal entrepreneurship,” “false entrepreneurship,” “forgery,” “use of forged documents,” and “smuggling.” Haciyev has rejected these charges as well.
He has held two hunger strikes since the start of his detention, protesting the "politically motivated" case against him.
Haciyev was previously convicted on slander charges and had been detained during human rights protests in recent years.
In 2011, Haciyev was given a two-year prison sentence on charges of evading military duty but was released nine months early on the eve of then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's scheduled visit to Baku.
He has consistently denied any wrongdoing. Azerbaijani and international human rights groups have recognized Haciyev as a political prisoner.
In February, the U.S. State Department expressed concerns over Haciyev's arrest and his state of health, stressing that the charges against him are “understood as politically motivated.”
Critics of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's government say authorities in the oil-rich Caspian Sea state frequently seek to silence dissent by jailing opposition activists, journalists, and civil-society advocates on trumped-up charges.
Aliyev has ruled Azerbaijan with an iron fist since 2003, taking over for his father, Heydar Aliyev, who served as president for a decade.
