BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 8. The next trial session regarding the criminal case of Martin Ryan and Azad Mammadli, charged with spying for France, initiated by the State Security Service of Azerbaijan, has been conducted, Trend reports.
In the trial held at the Baku Grave Crimes Court, chaired by Judge Elmin Rustamov, defendant Martin Ryan asked to speak to Azad Mammadli to express his opinion on the statement he gave in the previous trial. The court allowed him to do so.
The defendant, Martin Ryan, addressed his connections with employees of the French embassy.
"My meetings were not hidden. They were conducted openly, and the locations were public. If they were secret, the locations would not have been visible," he said.
The court also reviewed excerpts from Azad Mammadli’s initial testimony.
According to his statement, Mammadli studied in Russia for his bachelor’s degree and in France for his master’s. After returning from Turkey, where he could not find employment, he worked briefly in Moscow as a trainee lawyer and later in France at an IT company as a contracts specialist. Upon returning to Azerbaijan, he worked in a bank’s Legal Department and subsequently took assignments abroad.
Mammadli explained that to improve his French, he attended a course near the "28 May" metro station of Baku, where he befriended instructor Z.M., who later introduced him to Martin Ryan. They met in a café to discuss employment opportunities in Azerbaijan and France. Subsequently, Ryan invited Mammadli to a private gathering at his residence, where he met Frederick Devos. Devos expressed interest in Mammadli’s Russian education and political analysis skills, requesting analyses on Russia, which Mammadli declined. Later, Devos discussed Azerbaijan-Iran and Azerbaijan-Armenia relations, spy networks, and the "Husseinists" group.
Mammadli also detailed encounters with Laurent Grand at events organized by the French embassy.
"After meeting him, he requested that I attend all the events he organized. Some time later, I met with him again. During the meeting, he asked me to take a pen from the table and send a message to the email address written on it. I refused to take the pen and made it clear that I would not provide any written information. He then asked me to download the Signal application, which I did, and we communicated through it for a while. We later arranged another meeting, during which Laurent gave me a book as a gift. Between the pages of the book was an envelope containing an email address. He asked me to send a message to that address if I changed my mind, but I firmly refused," the defendant added.
The defendant, Mammadli, stated that he met Leron Lödy at an event organized by the French Embassy.
"Although we spoke at the event, he did not disclose his place of work," he noted.
The court will continue the proceedings on October 1 with the remainder of Mammadli’s initial testimony.
The accused persons were arrested on December 4, 2023. Ryan, CEO of Mercorama LLC, was charged with espionage (276th clause of Azerbaijan's Criminal Code).
According to the indictment, Ryan was used as a spy agent by employees of the French DGSE (General Directorate of External Security), who involved him in secret cooperation and were subsequently expelled from Baku as a "persona non grata."
Along with Ryan, Mammadli, a citizen of Azerbaijan, will stand trial in this criminal case on charges of "high treason" (274th clause of Azerbaijan's Criminal Code).
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