Azerbaijan top journalist gets seven and a half years in prison

"Baku's Court for Serious Crimes has sentenced Khadija Ismayilova to seven and a half years in prison for… illegal entrepreneurship and tax evasion," Ismayilova’s lawyer Fariz Namazly told AFP on Tuesday.
 
Namazly said his client is to appeal the verdict.
 
The 39-year-old investigative journalist, who has been in detention since December, has said her prosecution was politically motivated due to her reports on graft and government corruption.
 
Ismayilova has probed the alleged vast wealth amassed by Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and his family.
 
Her supporters say the charges against her have been concocted by the government to silence one of the few voices of independent journalism in the oil-rich former Soviet country.
 
In her final statement to the court on Monday, she said prosecutors and court officials had "resorted to more and more lies and fake evidence."
 
Rights groups accuse the government of Azerbaijan of stepping up pressure on government opponents after Aliyev was reelected as president for a third term in 2013.
 
Last month, Azerbaijan jailed a prominent rights activist couple to lengthy jail terms on charges similar to those leveled against Ismayilov.
 
Leyla Yunus was given an eight-and-a-half-year sentence while her husband, Arif, was jailed for seven years on economic charges including tax evasion and fraud.
 
Critics decried the court rulings as politically motivated.