A Baku court has sentenced Igor Kartavykh, executive director of the Baku branch of the Rossiya Segodnya news agency (Sputnik Azerbaijan), and editor-in-chief Yevgeny Belousov to four months of arrest. This is reported by APA news agency.

As “RIA Novosti” reported earlier, neither relatives nor representatives of the Russian consulate are allowed to the detained journalists for the second day.

The detention took place on June 30: Azerbaijani law enforcement agencies arrested seven employees of Sputnik Azerbaijan. Among them are the head of the editorial office Igor Kartavykh and editor-in-chief Yevgeniy Belousov. Shortly thereafter, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan opened a criminal case on articles related to fraud, illegal business activities and laundering of proceeds of crime. 

The Rossiya Segodnya media group demanded the immediate release of its employees. The Russian Foreign Ministry, characterizing Baku's actions as “unfriendly” and the detention as “illegal,” summoned Azerbaijan's Ambassador to Moscow Rahman Mustafayev. He was handed a note verbale demanding the immediate release of the Russian journalists.