Sergei Strekali: I was in Ganjalik, visiting a friend of ours in their home next to the Shusha Movie Theater. It was the evening. The weather was normal. I was leaving and I wanted to catch a taxi. I exited onto the street, and there was a computer store near where I was standing. It seems... I am sure, when I spoke with him, when we spoke to him, when we met, he was in the computer store. When I went to hail a taxi, he left too. He asked me for a cigarette. I gave him a cigarette and we started a brief conversation. I understand the Azerbaijani language and can speak it. He asked me, what do you do? I said I graduated from the Philosophy faculty, and work as a masseuse. I asked him what he does. He said, ‘I am a journalist.’ Basically it seemed from the conversation that he was a normal guy, not a bandit. Because the weather was normal, as talked we headed along Ingalib Street to Papanina.

Investigator: With who?

Sergei Strekali: With Agil.

Investigator: Do you know his last name?

Sergei Strekali: Khalilov.

Investigator: A….

Sergei Strekali: As we went along the road, we talked about a variety of different subjects. I don’t know where he was born. Sometimes when I meet people, I ask where they are born, where did they study, who are their friends. He however brought up the subject of homosexuality, and said that he is interested in these kinds of relationships.

Narrator: Sergei’s relationship with Agil was good until November or December of 2007. However after this, numerous calls were made, and messages that were sexual in nature were made, in attempts to get a friend involved in sexual relations. Then an argument broke out because he was revealed in front of a third person. Therefore, to get Agil to stop this and to scare him, he grabbed Agil’s neck with his left hand and used his right hand to strike him several times in the chest with the handle of a closed knife.  

Sergei Strekali: I saw the knife. The knife was with me, because first of all I wanted to clarify my relations with him, and I used it as a piece of metal. I didn’t use it like a knife and I didn’t want to kill him. I had on a waistcoat. I took the knife out of the waistcoat’s pocket and quickly opened it. This also happened within a few seconds. I saw him and I understood it was him, because I know him. I opened the door, and said, ‘Agil how are you?’ He was standing there. He saw me, and gave a reaction like ‘Ahhh.’ So I said, ‘Come, get in the car.’

Narrator: After Agil got out of the car, Sergei saw that the knife was open, and on the same day threw the knife on the street next to the Pink House Restaurant in the 8th mircodistrict. The statements S. Strekali gave to the investigation were confirmed during a joint interrogation of A. Khalilov and the witnesses.

Investigator: Strekali Sergei Yuryevich the first question is yours. Do you know the person sitting in front of you?

Sergei Strekali: Yes.

Investigator: Do you A. Khalilov know the person sitting in front of you? If you do know him, from where do you know him?

Agil Khalil: I know the name –Sergei.

Sergei Strekali: As if you don’t know my last name?

Investigator: One minute, one minute. From where do you know him?

Agil Khalil: This person who I know was with a girl named Lala in 2005 before I left for military service.

Investigator: Anything else? Aha…

Agil Khalil: That is to say that, how do I know him. By chance I saw Lala in the city. We met in Sergei’s house. We met twice.

Investigator: With who?

Agil Khalil: With Lala

Investigator: In Lala’s house?

Agil Khalil: No in his house.

Investigator: In Sergei’s house.

Agil Khalil: Yes

Investigator: Twice?

Agil Khalil: Yes.

Sergei Strekali: (facing his translator) No I met him on the street. No I met him on the street.

Investigator: You met Sergei in Sergei’s house?

Agil Khalil: In Sergei’s house.

Investigator: How was your relationship with Sergei?

Agil Khalil: My relationship with Sergei was hello, like, like ….

Investigator: Was their personal animosity..?

Agil Khalil: No, there was no personal animosity.

Investigator: You had a normal relationship?

Agil Khalil: When you say ‘normal,’ there wasn’t really much of a relationship.

Narrator: During investigative procedures, Sergei Strekali gave the details about how this incident happened; injuring A. Khalilov, the vehicle stopping, and throwing the knife on the ground. The incident did not take place in the street as A. Khalilov indicated, and allegations that he was being watched by two people and that he was attacked by more than one person are not true according to the testimony of witnesses. Driver Eldar Rasulov, who was interrogated as a witness, said that on 13 March Sergei called him, and they went to the house of a woman he wanted to meet. As they were going to this meeting, Sergei saw one young man, opened the glove compartment, took something out, and got out of the vehicle. Then Sergei invited the young man into the vehicle.

Driver Eldar Rasulov: They sat in the back. Sergei began speaking with him in a high tone. Finally, I heard that he said go (BLEEP). He was very angry and spoke in an elevated tone.

Narrator: After this Sergei took his acquaintance and one other girl they picked up on the way to a restaurant located in the 8th microdistrict. After 25 minutes they left the restaurant together and the girls were sent on their ways in different taxis. In the glove compartment of Sergei’s car he showed CDs with his own music, and showed he also had a knife that opened with a button on him. During interrogation, witness Safarova Nusret Yashar gizi confirmed that on 13 March at about 7 p.m. Sergei Strekali, who she knew as someone with abnormal orientation as a bisexual, came to her house. She said that after this, they went to a banquet at the “Pink House” restaurant with her friend Naila. Nusret said that, on several occasions Sergei took money from her to arrange sex with different men. During the investigation, A. Khalilov disingenuously denied that Sergei was in the area and stabbed him on that day, and also denied having relations with Sergei, having any disagreement or conflict with Sergei, and having intimate relations with any other males. However, other evidence gathered during the investigation has exposed his lies, and verifies the mechanism through which the incident occurred. Khalis Mammedov recognized Agil Khalilov in a photo, and as a witness and during joint interrogation confirmed that he had intimate relations with Sergei Strekali. He said that he met Agil Khalilov in Sergei Strekali’s house and they had unnatural sexual relations several times.

Khalil Mammedov: In September 2007 I called Sergei after work, at about 2 a.m. Sergei Strekali was at his house. He said come over. I went to his house, and after about an hour, almost exactly an hour, at about 3 a.m. another guy came. Sergei introduced us to him. They called him Agilem.

Investigator: Agilem. Did Sergei Strekali say there would be a guest or that somebody would come?

Khalil Mammedov: No, Sergei did not say there would be a guest. But when Agil came, I understood that he had called earlier and that he was waiting for him. We sat for about an hour, drank whiskey and talked. It was already rather late. Sergei went to the bedroom to sleep. The room there is very small – there is only one sofa, so I laid down with Agil on the sofa. I asked him to engage in sex – he did not refuse, this was mutually consensual. Agil played the role of active gay.

Investigator: Active gay!? And how long did you remain there?

Khalis Mammedov: Well, until he left. It was about three or two hours. Maybe two and a half. Agil left for work early – at about 6 or 6:30 in the morning.

Sergei Strekali: I went to sleep. And when I woke up Agil was already gone. I even joked saying, ‘Khalis how was it, did you like it?’ He said, ‘Yes everything was normal, everything was good.’ With that I understood that they formed regular sexual relations.

Narrator: It was determined that in December 2007 and January 2008 numerous calls and 16 text messages that were sexual in nature were sent from the mobile telephone belonging to A. Khalilov to the telephone belonging to citizen Sergei Strekali. In these messages, A. Khalilov offered to have intimate relations with S. Strekali himself and his friend who has an athletic build, and made other morally depraved offers. A. Khalilov’s messages cannot be revealed as they violate ethical norms. They were sent with words from his “good mannered” (ed. the quotation marks here are stated verbally by the narrator himself) lexicon and reflect his up bringing. S. Strekali said that A. Khalilov previously had sexual relations in his apartment with K. Mammedov and other men, and that he gave him the phone number of his friend Natig who works as a barber, because Agil was looking for a friends for passive homosexuality. Strekali even introduced Agil to well-known Russian model Raf Sarderov in his apartment.

Sergei Strekali: Agil called when he was here and asked who is at your house. I said, ‘I have a guest, he is from Russia, Russian model Raf Sardarov.’ He said, ‘I want to come.’ I said, ‘Come, no problem.’ He came and they talked. Raf Sardarov, that is to say he too has these types of relations. Raf Sadarov joked, ‘We don’t have them like this in Moscow, these swarthy men.’ He asked me, ‘What is his view on these types of relations.’ I said, ‘You know I think he has an interest in these types of relations, because I had a conversation with him and there was a slight connection.’ I said, ‘If you like him, no problem,’ That is to say they had relations, but I wasn’t told who was active and who was passive, and I never clarified this. After A. Khalilov left, I asked Raf, ‘How was it?’ He said, ‘Great.’

I called Natig and I said, I have one acquaintance, his name is Agil, he is a journalist. That is to say, I informed him that if he wants they can meet.

Natig Javadov (witness): Javadov Natig Abdulla oglu, born in Baku city. My birth date is March 12, 1981. I work at ART Studio as a barber.

Investigator: What can you say about A. Khalilov’s relations?

Natig Javadov: In the summer of 2007, A. Khalilov called my telephone, while I was resting at my parents’ garden. He said to me, Sergei gave me your number, so I want to meet you. Then he offered to have sexual intercourse.  I said, I don’t know you, and I don’t want to know you. And so it was that he called me several times, and I said I am active, so I can’t be mutual with you. That is to say, in our relations, only you can be.  He started calling me, and we spoke on the phone several times. I did not have time. I was resting in the garden in the summer, but he said to me, come let’s meet, sit down somewhere, maybe something will work out. I said no, something like that won’t work out, because everything has to be mutual between us. And I said, Agil don’t call me again, I don’t want to talk to you. He started saying to me, I want you, I want to be with you. I said, no something like that won’t work out, because I am in my garden with my parents, I won’t be able to meet you.

Narrator: In addition, two days after the incident, calls from Sergei Strekali’s phone to A. Khalilov’s phone were made. Although these final calls were not answered, they were registered through technical means. Thus, the abundant irrefutable evidence gathered during the investigation shows that the event involving A. Khalilov was not related to his professional work as a journalist. It was determined that it occurred due to actions by him that violate moral norms. As their newspaper’s employee was going to be revealed, “Azadlig” Newspaper’s leadership claimed that A. Khalilov was being blackmailed through claims that the journalist had homosexual relations. The newspaper disseminated secret information about the investigation, and thus violated the law. For the criminal actions he committed, S. Strekali has been attracted to the case under article 127.1 of the Criminal Code as a suspect, and has been sentenced to pre-trial detention. At present, the investigation continues. In addition, the material that has been gathered in connection with the incident that occurred on 22 February 2008 involving A. Khalilov in the 9th microdistrict of Binegedi is being added to this criminal case for review, and will be investigated.