“I cannot give legal meaning to the investigation by the State Prosecutor’s Office in the presence of the General Prosecutor’s Office”
Human rights defender Anar Mammadli was summoned to the State Security Service on August 9. DTX, the State Security Service, wanted to receive testimony from Anar Mammadli regarding the “Pegasus” case.
Anar Mammadli himself shared information about this on his Facebook page, writing that he was interrogated for almost an hour:
“In my explanation, I shared that my phones were checked in the laboratory organized by the Amnesty International organization, and that there was a notification confirming that the Pegasus virus had been downloaded.”
Anar Mammadli stressed that he could not give legal meaning to the investigation of the State Prosecutor’s Office in this case.
“But I am looking forward to the results of this investigation. At the same time, I consider the General Prosecutor’s Office to be a spectator to the “Pegasus” case as inaction.”
Last week, the head of the Institute of Democratic Initiatives, Akif Gurbanov, also gave an explanation on the same case at the State Council of Ukraine. He also pointed out that the investigation should be conducted by the prosecutor’s office:
“The first thing that comes to mind is that the fact that the investigation is being taken over by the suspicious body does not show anything promising in way of the conclusions.”
Akif Gurbanov told Meydan TV that the interrogation took place based on his complaint to the prosecutor’s office.
He doesn’t expect anything new:
“The point is that the other side wants evidence from us, but we don’t have the resources to get it. I also wrote in my explanation that the State Security Service has the means to prove this. But these were not the points that emerged after the “Pegasus” statement, and even before that we had doubts about being listened to. Not only about our phones being tapped, but also about our location being monitored. I don’t think anything will happen from that point of view. In all cases, the blame rests with the state authorities because the ball is in their court. We have filed our complaint, let them conduct an investigation that will convince everyone.”
DTX did not make a statement regarding the explanation received from social activists.
In July of last year, the journalists’ Organized Crime and Corruption Research Project (OCCRP) made a claim that the government of Azerbaijan was spying on and tapping the phones of journalists, political activists, lawyers and other people by purchasing the Pegasus software from Israel’s NSO Group .
Following the statement, many journalists, lawyers, and politicians announced that they would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.