Ministry said contract registration unnecessary, witness tells Azerbaijan trial

An official document proves Azerbaijani authorities confirmed service contracts did not require state registration, a witness has told the trial of civil rights activist Bashir Suleymanli.

Suleymanli, head of the Institute for Civil Rights, faces money laundering charges over foreign funding received through service contracts rather than officially registered grants. Prosecutors claim the funds were illicitly obtained, an allegation the defence denies.

Testifying at the court hearing in Baku, Mehriban Rahimli, a former advisor to the US-based German Marshall Fund, said the organisation stopped issuing grants after Azerbaijan amended its NGO legislation in 2013, switching instead to service contracts.

"When we switched to service contracts, we applied to the ministry for them to be registered," Rahimli told the court. "A department head sent a stamped and signed reply stating there was no need to register service contracts in Azerbaijan."

Rahimli said she possessed the official written response to prove her statement. She also rejected prosecution claims that Suleymanli had misused project funds, stating that all expenditure was subject to strict auditing.

"What the investigator wrote is personal speculation, not based on facts," Rahimli said.

Rahimli added that she herself faces separate charges in what she described as a "fabricated" case against civil society figures.

Suleymanli told the court all project funding was obtained legally and spent on public interest work, including regional legal aid and election monitoring.

The trial was adjourned until 1 October to allow judges to take summer leave, a delay that drew an objection from Suleymanli.

The proceedings form part of a wider investigation into independent NGOs first opened by Azerbaijani authorities in 2014. The case was suspended in 2022 but reopened by the Prosecutor General's Office in February 2025, leading to a fresh wave of prosecutions against civil society activists.

Five activists remain in custody. Courts have already handed prison sentences of eight years and seven and a half years to activists Asef Ahmadov and Zamin Zakiyev respectively, while several others have received suspended sentences.

All the accused deny the charges and maintain their innocence.