A court has ordered four months of pretrial detention for Rahman Mammadov, head of Azerbaijan’s Omid retail chain, and Tarlan Gasimzade, the company’s sales department manager, over an alleged extortion case against a store employee.
Rahman Mammadov, head of the Omid Retail Network, which sells home improvement and household goods across Azerbaijan, has been placed in pretrial detention over an incident in Ganja. Tarlan Gasimzade, the sales department manager of the chain, received the same ruling.
According to the allegations behind the case, Mammadov and Gasimzade accused the manager of the “Omid Ganja-3” branch of misappropriating funds collected from the store. Acting on that accusation, they allegedly beat and threatened the branch manager and demanded 88,000 manats as compensation for the claimed damage to the company.
The branch manager reported the incident to police. Both Mammadov and Gasimzade were subsequently detained.
Both have been charged under Article 182.2.3 of the Criminal Code, which covers extortion involving the use of force. A court has since ruled to place both in pretrial detention for four months.
About the Omid retail chain
Omid is considered one of Azerbaijan’s largest wholesale and retail networks in construction materials, repair supplies and household goods. The company has close to 100 branches in Baku, Ganja, Sumgayit and various districts across the country.
