1. In December 2014, Khadija Ismayilova was arrested on charges of incitement to suicide, a charge widely criticized by human rights organizations as ludicrous.
19 Facts About Khadija Ismayilova
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On 1 September 2015, Khadija Ismayilova was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison under charges of embezzlement and tax evasion.
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On 25 May 2016, the Azerbaijani supreme court ordered Khadija Ismayilova released on probation.
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Khadija Ismayilova graduated from the Baku State University with a degree in philology in 1997.
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In May 2012 an investigative report co-authored by Khadija Ismayilova, alleged that the AIMROC consortium in charge of extracting gold and silver worth US$2.5 billion from the Chovdar mine was owned by three Panamanian companies, with the wife and daughters of the president as their senior managers.
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When talking about her position on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Khadija Ismayilova said a 2022 interview to the German magazine zenith that despite her criticism of Ilham Aliyev's rule and her collecting signatures for a petition to solve crimes committed by the Azerbaijani army during the Second Karabakh War, she held Armenia responsible for keeping Azerbaijani territory under occupation in violation of international law.
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Khadija Ismayilova added that in July 2011, she had been abroad and that according to the maintenance worker, an unidentified man had met him at the door claiming to be the owner of the apartment.
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On 26 January 2013, Khadija Ismayilova was among dozens of peaceful protesters who were detained for participating in an unsanctioned protest action in Baku in support of the Ismayilli rioters.
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On 15 August 2013, the Binagadi Court of Appeal upheld the previous decision, after which Khadija Ismayilova stated she would only perform community service in public, out of fear for her safety.
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An article published on 13 February 2014 on a pro-government website accused Khadija Ismayilova of passing along information discrediting members of Azerbaijan's political opposition to two US congressional staffers who were in Baku, allegedly to gather intelligence.
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On 14 February 2014, Khadija Ismayilova posted a scan to her Facebook page that appears to be a contract used by the Ministry of National Security to hire an informer.
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In September 2014, a campaign began claiming that Khadija Ismayilova worked with Armenians to organize a protest at the Warsaw OSCE Summit.
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In February 2014, Khadija Ismayilova posted a list of requests to her supporters in case of her arrest and made a video in October 2014 discussing why she believed that she would be arrested.
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In February 2015, Khadija Ismayilova was additionally charged with tax evasion and abuse of power.
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Khadija Ismayilova stated that beginning in December 2014, he had contacted the Office of the Attorney General asking to withdraw his original complaint which he had filed while "going through psychologically difficult times".
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In September 2015, Khadija Ismayilova was found guilty on the counts of tax evasion and abuse of power, but acquitted on the count of inciting to suicide.
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Khadija Ismayilova had previously filed a case with the European Court of Human Rights stating that she had been held in prison beyond the pre-trial detention of two months following her December 2014 arrest.
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In December 2014, Khadija Ismayilova was detained and in September 2015 she was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison on trumped-up charges.
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Khadija Ismayilova was conditionally released in May 2016, but as of January 2020 she remained subject to a travel ban, unable to leave the country despite numerous applications to do so.