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The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan issued a statement about the detention of six people, including the footballer Javid Huseynov, over the case of the journalist Rasim Aliyev’s beating and murder, according to the information agency Trend.

The statement says they face charges under Article 126.3 (deliberate causing of serious harm to health on imprudence entailed to death of a victim) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. Preventive measure in the form of arrest has been chosen against them. Javid Huseynov, the football player, is charged with concealment of crime under Article 307.1 (not informing about known preparing or committed minor serious or serious crimes) and Article 307.2 (obviously not promised concealment of minor serious crimes) of Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. Preventive measure in the form of arrest is applied against him, too. The operational investigative group also investigates the version that the commitment of the crime could have been incited by Huseynov himself.

According to ANS Press, there are two more footballers among those arrested, Jamal Mammadov, who ended his career in 2013, and Elshan Ismayilov, the main suspect. Therefore, three of the six people arrested are professional footballers.

Haqqin.az points, “Neither Javid Huseynov, nor his relative, Elshan Ismayilov, also a footballer detained on suspicion of murder, realize the consequences that necessarily follow the unsporting and now also the hooligan behavior on and out of the field. The code of the street is what guides them, and they behave like presumptuous hooligans thinking their extremely high salary grants them the right to look down on people. Moreover, they get sincerely puzzled when people speak out against them. Now they wonder why they cannot get away with what they were able to before. Still, it is also our guilt. Did anyone condemn Huseynov for his, to put it mildly, indecent, gesture during the match between the Cypriot Apollon and Azerbaijani Gabala? No. But we should have done that.”

The information agency Turan reports that the victim’s family has still not been informed about the investigation process. “I have not been interrogated, and our family has not received any information. I learnt about the detention of a person only through the press,” Mammadali Aliyev, the victim’s father, told Turan. The investigating authorities have not informed him about being recognized as a victim, either.

The agency points that the government’s attention to the case proves that the murder has a political context. “The head of state Ilham Aliyev promised an indispensable punishment for those who beat the journalist. By this, he showed that the authorities stand up for the protection of freedom of speech and expression in Azerbaijan. Still, the undisclosed murders of the journalists Elmar Huseynov and Rafig Tagi, the prosecutions and physical violence against the journalists and their families only indicate to the pretentious character of the statements about the protection of the freedom of speech,” Turan writes. The agency expresses confidence that after “the dust settles after Rasim Aliyev’s tragic killing,” a strict control will be established over the social media and the press.

OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović condemned  the killing of journalist Rasim Aliyev, following a letter she wrote to the President of Azerbaijan, pointing to the rapidly deteriorating media freedom situation in Azerbaijan. “Unfortunately, almost nothing has been done,” Mijatović wrote. “The latest tragic death of Rasim Aliyev is the ultimate reminder to all of us that the vicious circle has to be broken and something has to be done.”

The US Embassy in Azerbaijan also issued a statement in connection Rasum Aliyev’s murder. “We welcome the Azerbaijani government’s commitment to a full investigation, and we support bringing the perpetrators of this crime to justice,” the statement reads.

On 8 August 2015, a journalist from Ann.az, Rasim Aliyev, was brutally beaten in Azerbaijan. Numerous injuries led to his death in clinical center on 9 August. The reason for the attack on the journalist was his criticism on Facebook of Javid Huseynov, a player from the Azerbaijani football club Gabala.

Rasim Aliyev became the third journalist murdered in Azerbaijan over the past 10 years. In March 2005, Elmar Huseynov, the editor of the Azerbaijani opposition magazine Monitor, was killed at the entrance to his home. In November 2011, the columnist journalist Rafig Tagi died in hospital a few days after being stubbed. Despite the authorities’ public promises, the murders remain undiscovered so far.

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