Azernews.Az

BAKU – A Baku court has sentenced an Azerbaijani citizen to 15 years in prison on charges of conspiring with the Al-Qaeda terror group.

Rahim Salmanov, a resident of the northern Gusar region, was charged with such crimes as complicity in an attempt to topple the government, setting up illegal armed groups and inciting ethnic and religious hatred.

According to the indictment, Salmanov had been under search in the Gusar region from 2002. In 2006, he was arrested in the Russian republic of Daghestan and further extradited to Azerbaijan. He was part of a group of 15 people comprising citizens of Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey and Yemen who were members of radical religious organizations and Al-Qaeda and trained at military camps in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, the indictment said.

The group’s members were charged with terror acts, illegal possession of arms, murdering a police officer in Baku and other grave crimes.

The Grave Crimes Court convicted ring leader Arif Hajiyev to life in prison, while other members of the ring were handed down sentences of five to ten years.

Salmanov stood trial at the Grave Crimes Court in 2008 and was convicted to 15 years imprisonment. But the sentence was revoked by a higher court and the case was remanded.