Azerbaijani court imprison Russian reporter
(MENAFN) A court in Baku has ordered a four-month pre-trial detention for Igor Kartavykh, head of Sputnik Azerbaijan’s editorial office, and Editor-in-Chief Evgeny Belousov. The arrests took place during a police raid on Sputnik’s Baku office the previous day. Azerbaijani authorities accused the Russian news outlet of operating through “illegal financing,” though Sputnik has rejected the claims as “absurd.”
An editor from the Russian video agency Ruptly was also detained while filming outside the Sputnik office. According to Azerbaijani media, seven individuals have been detained in connection with the case, which reportedly involves accusations of fraud, illegal business operations, and money laundering. However, only the senior editors have been placed in pre-trial custody.
Following the arrests, Russia’s Foreign Ministry summoned Azerbaijani Ambassador Rakhman Mustafaev, condemning Baku’s actions as “hostile” and the detentions as unlawful.
The arrests come after Azerbaijan curtailed Sputnik’s activities in February by restricting accreditation to a single journalist, though Sputnik said it was never formally banned. Diplomatic discussions between Moscow and Baku had been ongoing regarding the agency’s operations.
This latest move worsens already strained relations between the two countries, which were recently inflamed by a Russian police raid targeting an alleged Azerbaijani crime group in Yekaterinburg. That operation, tied to a string of murders dating back to the early 2000s, led to the deaths of two elderly suspects, with Russian authorities attributing at least one death to heart failure.
Azerbaijani officials have accused Russian law enforcement of intentionally killing the detainees through blunt force trauma, further escalating diplomatic tensions and fueling public outrage in Baku.
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