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Famous Azerbaijani political prisoners, spouses Leyla and ArifYunus are already in the capital of the Netherlands,Amsterdam, Azerbaijani news agency APA reports.

According to the report, the couple’s attorney, ElchinSadiqov, said that on April 18, the Supreme Court of Baku considered and approvedthe cassation appeal. Leyla and ArifYunus were allowed to leave the country. Sadiqov also emphasized that the lawsuit will go on until all the charges are dropped.

Meanwhile, citing Dutch media, Azerbaijani bureau of RFE/RL writes that the couple wasmet by their daughter DinaraYunus upon landing at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport on April 19. After arriving in the country, they were received by the kingdom’s Foreign Ministry. The Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of the Netherlands,Bert Koenders, said that the Azerbaijani rights defenders will receive treatment in the country. Speaking about the period of their stay in the kingdom, Koenders noted that it depends on their own wish, and they can ask for asylum after the treatment.

In its turn, Azerbaijani news agency Turan writes that Koenders stated that the human rights defenders willhave a rest after "their long and hard fight for the improvement of the human rights situation in Azerbaijan."

According to Koenders, the Yunus family deserves “unconditional” support by the international community. “Leyla and Arifhad put their own safety and happiness at stake in the struggle for democracy and human rights. They struggled for the improvement of the situation in Azerbaijan, which is remarkable. These people carried out a miserable existence in their own country," he said.

It is reported that like the EU and other countries, the Netherlands also made efforts for the Yunus family’s liberation following their arrest in summer of 2014. “Yunus family’s storyshows that the international community needs to put pressure in order to achieve justice,”Koenders said.
The Azerbaijani authorities did not allow the gravely ill spouses Yunus to leave the country for havingtreatmentabroad. It was reported that a number of international institutions, influential human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (OPHRD), etc., called to drop all the fabricated charges against the couple and let them go abroad for treatment.

On 9 December, Baku Court of Appeal released the famous Azerbaijani human rights defender Leyla Yunusright from the courtroom, and another preventive measure, suspended sentence, was chosen against her.On 12 November, Baku Court of Appeals made a decision to release ArifYunus, one of the best-known political prisoners in Azerbaijan, from jail. His arrest was changed with a signature for not leaving the country.

On 30 July 2014, Yunus was arrested in the yard of her house. She was charged with high treason, tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship, forgery and large-scale fraud. Her husband, ArifYunus, also faced charges of high treason and large-scale fraud. In August 2015, Baku Court of Grave Crimes brought in a verdict against the Azerbaijani human rights defenders Leyla and ArifYunus, sentencing them to 8.5 years and 7 years’ imprisonment respectively.

In April 2015, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, published his written observations submitted to the European Court of Human Rights on the case of Leyla and ArifYunus. “The case of Leyla and ArifYunus illustrates the pattern of repression that has emerged in Azerbaijan in recent years whereby human rights defenders are harassed through restrictive legislation and selectively targeted with criminal prosecutions on charges that defy credibility,” his statement said.