Former political prisoner in Azerbaijan accused of violence and arrested for third time

Azerbaijani opposition member and former political prisoner Tofiq Yagublu was accused of committing violence. Both he and those close to him say that the accusation is false. He has already been arrested twice before.

Tofiq Yaqublu is a member of opposition party Musavat, and the united opposition National Council of Democratic Forces. In 2013, he was sentenced to five years on charges of organizing riots. Another famous political prisoner, Ilgar Mammadov, was convicted in the same high-profile case. Yagublu was pardoned in 2016. In October 2019, he was once again arrested and sentenced to a month in prison, this time after an opposition rally.

Tofiq Yaqublu was arrested for a third time on March 22. Before that, he managed to tell in social networks that another car intentionally crashed into his car while it was parked on the side of the road, and a man and a woman got out and attacked him.

The police claim it was Yaqublu who attacked the spouses after they crashed into him, and that they later filed a complaint.

Yaqublu, his relatives and fellow opposition members consider this whole incident to be a provocation, and the two people involved to be frontmen.

On the same day Popular Front Party activist Anar Melikov was charged with violating quarantine and given 10 days of administrative detention.