Azerbaijan starts trial of Frenchman accused of spying

By Nailia Bagirova

BAKU (Reuters) - French citizen Martin Ryan went on trial in Azerbaijan on Monday on spying charges that the judge said could lead to a prison sentence of 10 to 15 years.

Azerbaijan accuses Ryan, who was arrested in December 2023, of collecting secret information about its military cooperation with Turkey and Pakistan, and helping to recruit French-speaking Azerbaijanis to cooperate with French intelligence.

Ryan told the court he pleaded "partially guilty".

"I acknowledge that I carried out the actions attributed to me, but I did so unknowingly and unintentionally. I am prepared to present evidence supporting this during the trial," he said.

Ryan had been working in Azerbaijan for a food importing company that also offered consulting services. Prosecutors allege that he also facilitated contact between French intelligence and Azad Mammadli, an Azerbaijani citizen who is also on trial.

Mammadli, who is accused of high treason and faces a sentence of 15 years to life imprisonment if convicted, pleaded not guilty at Monday's hearing.

Relations between Azerbaijan and France have worsened sharply since Azerbaijan took back control of the previously Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh region in September 2023, three decades after it broke away from Baku.

France has a large Armenian diaspora and supplies arms to Armenia. In November last year, France's climate minister cancelled a trip to attend U.N. talks in Baku, and France protested against "unacceptable" remarks, after Azerbaijan accused it of committing "crimes" in its overseas territories.

(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova, writing by Filip Lebedev, editing by Mark Trevelyan and Timothy Heritage)

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