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Amal Clooney, a famous lawyer and Hollywood star George Clooney’s wife, submitted a lengthy filing to the ECHR on behalf of imprisoned Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova on March 14, according to RFE/RL .

"I will continue to advocate for her release until she is free," she told RFE/RL in an email conversation.
Clooney believes the case against Ismayilova was wholly politically motivated, aimed at keeping her from continuing her corruption investigations of President Ilham Aliyev and his clan.

"I believe it's important to protect an individual journalist against a powerful state that has overstepped. This is about a government that is abusing its power to silence journalists like Khadija, as well as other critics of the ruling regime," Clooney said.

RFE/RL notes that Clooney confirmed in January 2016 that she would be joining Ismayilova's defence, a move that brings substantial legal and public clout to her case.

In the case she is bringing before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Clooney told RFE/RL that she and her co-counsel were arguing that there was no genuine suspicion that Ismayilova committed any of the crimes she was charged with and that there was no justification for her pre-trial detention. "On the contrary, the case involved a politically motivated prosecution to restrict her freedom of speech," she said.

"Khadija's case is emblematic of a wider crackdown on journalists and human rights defenders in Azerbaijan," she said. "Azerbaijan has one of the highest rates of imprisonment of journalists in the world, and yet this is a country that is a member of the Council of Europe, an organization whose goal is to promote human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. This is something that should concern us all."

RFE/RL reminds its audience that supporters of the Aliyev regime have repeatedly tried to smear Ismayilova, including circulating secret surveillance video of her. Top government officials have also attacked Clooney with spurious allegations that she is of Armenian descent. Clooney, who holds dual British and Lebanese citizenship, again rejected the label.

“I don't see how belonging to any nation, whatever it is, would discredit me in any way. As it happens my heritage is not Armenian, but I do not see why this should matter," said Clooney, who has been involved in several high-profile cases around the world, including the defence of a Canadian journalist for Al-Jazeera and an ECHR case in which she represented Armenia. "But obviously the fact I represented Armenia does not make me Armenian, any more than my representation of Cambodia before the International Court of Justice made me Cambodian, or my advice to the Greek government made me Greek."

Meanwhile, in a handwritten letter to RFE/RL Ismayilova, who is serving her time in a Baku prison, also condemned the attacks on Clooney. "I chose Clooney because she defended [journalists,] and I was happy with the quality of her defense," Ismayilova said in the letter dated March 10.

Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) reports  that the FGJ, a Swedish organisation for investigative journalism, awarded OCCRP and its Swedish partners SVT and TT a Golden Shovel award for its joint bribery investigation into TeliaSonera’s business dealings in Azerbaijan.

The award was bestowed upon the team for the completion of Khadija Ismayilova’s investigation, which she had started in 2014. It showed that TeliaSonera’s partner in Azerbaijan had close ties to the ruling clan.
Swedish-Finnish telecommunications company TeliaSonera is suspected of giving extremely large bribes, at least 6 billion kroner (about $ 800 million) in the course of the company's work in the Azerbaijani mobile communications market. If the information is confirmed, this will become the largest corruption transaction in the history of the Swedish business. According to the reports, the bribe, which went to the pockets of the regime of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, was conducted through a complicated scheme of covert operations by selling and buying shares and firms in a number of countries.

Meanwhile, the US branch of Amnesty International reports that Azerbaijani human rights defenders and former prisoners of conscience Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunus are being prevented from leaving the country for urgent medical treatment abroad as their health continues to deteriorate.

The organisation has launched a campaign to call on the Azerbaijan authorities to immediately quash Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunus' convictions and drop all outstanding charges as they were charged and convicted solely for their legitimate human rights work and their exercise of the right to freedom of expression. The organisation further highlights the necessity of the treatment of the couple abroad as they are not receiving adequate medical care in Azerbaijan.

Amnesty International calls on everyone interested support the couple by sending an appeal to the emails of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Prosecutor General Zakir Garalov urging them to remove all conditions attached to the release of Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunus and to allow them to travel abroad urgently to receive medical treatment.

On 13 August 2015, Baku Court of Grave Crimes brought in a verdict against Azerbaijani human rights defenders Leyla and Arif Yunus sentencing them to 8.5 years and 7 years’ imprisonment respectively. Leyla Yunus had been arrested on 30 July 2014 in the yard of her house. She was charged with high treason, tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship, forgery and large-scale fraud. Her husband, Arif Yunus, also faced charges of high treason and large-scale fraud. On 9 December 2015, Baku Court of Appeal ruled to release Leyla Yunus right from the courtroom, and her punishment was replaced with suspended sentence. On 12 November, the same court had made a decision to release her husband in exchange for a signature for not leaving the country. 

On 1 September 2015, Baku Court of Grave Crimes handed down a 7.6 years prison sentence to the Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova. The court found her guilty of the Articles 179 (embezzlement and misappropriation), 192 (illegal business), 213 (tax evasion) and 308 (abuse of power) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Ismayilova was cleared from the article 125 (incitement to commit suicide) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. Earlier, the public prosecutor, Ramazan Hadiyev, had claimed 9 years of imprisonment for Khadija Ismayilova. The journalist was detained on 5 December 2014, which was followed by a wave of condemning statements by a number of international organisations and influential representatives from various states, who claimed her arrest was politically motivated.