An Azerbaijani opposition journalist says he fears for his life after people presenting themselves as Ukrainian police beat him and attempted to detain him at his apartment in Kyiv on March 5.
Fikret Huseynli came to Ukraine in October 2017 on business. Since then, the dissident and Dutch citizen has found himself fighting extradition to Azerbaijan on what is widely believed to be a politically motivated Interpol warrant.
Huseynli’s case is still working its way through the Ukrainian judicial system. But now the Azerbaijani together with rights activists fear he could be kidnapped and returned to Baku extrajudicially — potentially with the support of Ukrainian authorities.
“I’m afraid,” Huseynli told the Kyiv Post. “I don’t know what will happen. I don’t trust Ukrainian law enforcement.”
A knock at the door
On March 5, Huseynli saw unknown individuals outside his apartment building. He says they were showing his photo to people and asking if he resided there. That night, he received a call from people who presented themselves as Ukrainian police. They said they were at his apartment and that he needed to open the door so they could detain him, take him to the police precinct, and extradite him to Baku in 48 hours’ time.
Huseynli refused to open the door and feared that the men would break it down. He summoned the landlord, who lived nearby. When the landlord opened the door, the men immediately attacked Huseynli, knocking him to the ground and breaking his dental bridge. (Huseynli showed the Kyiv Post photos of bruising on his body and the broken bridge).
At that point, Huseynli says, the landlord threatened to call the police, and the men agreed to wait for the journalist on the street. After they exited, the landlord asked Huseynli to vacate the apartment. Huseynli says he left through the balcony to avoid the men.
With the help of an acquaintance, Huseynli managed to find another apartment. But when he left to buy groceries, he was followed by people who have been following him for several weeks. After he returned to the apartment, Huseynli says rights activists urged him to lock the door, close the blinds, and stay inside.
Extradition case
In 2006, while working as a journalist for the Azerbaijani opposition daily Azadlig, Huseynli was abducted, severely beaten, and left for dead on the side of the road, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Two years later, he fled Azerbaijan for the Netherlands. There he received asylum and eventually Dutch citizenship, and continued his work as a journalist for the independent Azerbaijani satellite television channel Turan TV.
Huseynli came to Ukraine last year to open a Turan bureau in Kyiv. However, on Oct. 14, he was detained by border officers at the Boryspil International Airport as he prepared to board a flight out of the country. It turned out that, while Huseynli was in Kyiv, Azerbaijan had put out an Interpol red notice on him on charges of fraud and illegal border crossing.
Both Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders called for Huseynli to be freed.
After two weeks, Huseynli was finally released from custody on the guarantee of Ukrainian Member of Parliament Mykola Knyazhytsky and Borys Zakharov, the director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.
Since then, however, the journalist has been forced to live in Kyiv without a passport, which is in possession of the prosecutor. Currently the prosecution is carrying out an extradition check on Huseynli and it remains unclear when it will conclude, said Dmytro Mazurok, a lawyer from the Right to Protection NGO who serves as Huseynli’s legal counsel. Legally, the prosecutor has a year.
Fikret Huseynli poses for a photo with Mustafa Dzhemilev, chairperson of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis assembly and a former Soviet dissident. (Fikret Huseynli/Facebook)
But Huseynli and rights activists fear that he may be de facto extradited without a court order. Leyla Yunus, the director of the Amsterdam-based Institute for Peace and Democracy, believes that Azerbaijan paid off Ukrainian law enforcement to deliver Huseynli to them. She views the delays in the case, the prosecutor’s aggressive support for extradition and an unsuccessful motion last month to require that Huseynli be taken back into custody as evidence of this.
Yunus also fears that, even if the court rules against extradition, Huseynli could be kidnapped in the transit zone at an airport and taken back to Azerbaijan.
Her fears are not unfounded. In May 2017, another exiled Azerbaijani opposition journalist, Afghan Mukhtarli, was snatched off the street in Tbilisi, Georgia by men dressed as Georgian police, forced into a car, driven to the border, and handed over to Azerbaijan. In January, he was sentenced to six years in prison on questionable charges.
“It’s important that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and Interior Ministry make a decision to guarantee [Huseynli’s] safety,” Yunus told the Kyiv Post. “But that hasn’t happened.”
Reason to fear
Lawyer Mazurok interprets the situation differently. He suggests the case’s slow movement is more reflective of the way the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office works on a case that does not appear “urgent,” and not intentional obstruction.
“It’s difficult for them to understand that a person is living on his own money here, can’t work, and can’t receive money transfers without a passport,” Mazurok told the Kyiv Post.
Mazurok stresses that, even if the Ukrainian court rules in favor of extradition, he will appeal the ruling and potentially even go to the European Court of Human Rights.
But he admits there is reason to worry. Because the extradition check is ongoing, Ukrainian police should not attempt to detain Huseynli. Mazurok suggests that the men who came to the journalist’s door are likely agents of Azerbaijan’s security service.
“Considering that our borders are not locked down — and one could exit through Crimea or even the (self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics) — there is no major obstacle to a security service.”
Meanwhile both Huseyli and Yunus have appealed to anyone they believe could help: Dutch, Ukrainian, and EU officials, as well as international organizations. Yunus has even asked the Dutch Embassy in Kyiv to allow Huseynli to reside in the embassy building. So far, none of it has yielded clear results.
“I sent many letters to the Ukrainian members of parliament, to the EU parliament,” Huseynli said. “But no one hears me.”
