Baku | WTNS | March 04: Sabuhi Salimov, a member of the Azerbaijan Islamic Party, has died of a heart attack in court following a 53-day hunger strike in protest against his illegal detention by the dictator regime of the Ilham Aliyev.

Salimov died on 2 March, reportedly shortly after the Baku Court of Appeal upheld his conviction.

Salimov was illegally detained by Azerbaijan’s State Security Service in October 2021. On 11 November 2022, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison on alleged charges of treason.

His family said that Salimov had been on hunger strike for 53 days, and on dry hunger strike for the last seven. They added that he had stopped his protest on 1 March as a result of serious health issues.

‘Sabuhi had a heart operation a few years ago. But his death was caused by an unjust court decision’, one member of his family said.

‘The reason for Sabuhi’s arrest was that he burned the flag of Israeli regime, asked for freedom for al-Quds and Karabakh, and held remembrance events for Imams at his home’, said the unnamed relative. ‘He protested the injustice of the courts in this country with his hunger strike at the cost of his life.’