By empty (3/5/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

In five separate court cases that ended on 4 and 5 March, 12 people have been sentenced to prison terms of three to six years for their alleged participation in the clashes in Baku between police and opposition supporters in the wake of the disputed 15 October presidential election. A further 26 defendants received suspended sentences. In a statement released on 5 March, the opposition Musavat Party condemned the sentences as based on fabricated charges substantiated by false testimony and false witnesses.

By empty (3/4/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Georgia\'s President Mikhail Saakashvili met with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev during a visit designed to reinforce friendly ties between the two neighbours and partners in a strategic oil pipeline project. Good relations between the two nations are seen as crucial to the multi-billion-dollar (euro) Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which will export crude from the landlocked Caspian Sea, across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, to world markets. It was the first time the leaders of the two former Soviet republics in the Caucasus had met.

By empty (3/4/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Forty-three citizens were kidnapped in Chechnya in 2004, Executive Director of the Memorial human rights center Tatiana Kasatkina told Interfax on Thursday. \"As far as we know, 37 people went missing in January, five in February and one in March,\" she said, adding that this information is incomplete. The number of abductions could increase in February, Kasatkina said.