Leyla Mustafayeva hugs her husband, the journalist Afgan Mukhtarli, during his arrival in Berlin on March 17. Photo (c): European Centre for Press and Media Freedom. On March 17, the Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Mukhtarli arrived at Berlin's Schönefeld Airport, where he was reunited with his wife and daughter. He had served nearly three years in an Azerbaijani jail — half of a six year sentence which was widely considered politically motivated and retaliation for his investigative reporting. Mukhtarli's release is all the more significant due to the scandalous cirucmstances of his arrest — or rather, his abduction. On May 29, 2017 Mukhtarli left his home in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, to meet a friend at a cafe. At 19:00 he rang his wife, the journalist Leyla Mustafayeva, to tell her that he would shortly be home. But he never arrived. Journalist Afgan Mukhtarli in Tbilisi. Screenshot from YouTube / Kavkazskiye Novosti. Instead, Mukhtarli surfaced two days later in a detention cell in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku. He told a lawyer that he had been seized by men wearing Georgian police uniforms who stuffed his pockets with banknotes, bundled him into a car, and drove him across the border into Azerbaijan, where he was arrested for illegal border crossing and smuggling money. The Georgian prime minister denied all accusations that his government had any complicity in the arrest, but many remained sceptical. Over the years prior to Mukhtarli's arrest, Tbilisi had become a home for a thriving community of political dissidents and independent journalists from Azerbaijan, who were attracted by Georgia's relative freedom of expression. But now, they started wondering who would disappear next, and whether Georgia was really a safe haven after all. Since 2015, Georgia had been that safe haven for Afgan Mukhtarli. That was the year when he and his family left Azerbaijan after harassment due to his investigative journalism. Mukhtarli had collaborated with MeydanTV, the exiled independent Azerbaijani media outlet, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on high-profile investigations implicating state officials, sometimes even the Aliyev family, which has ruled Azerbaijan since 1993. It was the type of work which was bound to ruffle feathers. I interviewed Mukhtarli about his experiences and his hope for the future. His answers, given in Azerbaijani, were translated by his wife Leyla Mustafayeva. Maxim Edwards: Why do you think the authorities released you? And why did they choose to do so now? Afgan Mukhtarli: My release was thanks to pressure by members of the Council of Europe (CoE) and the European Parliament. [CoE Commissioner for Human Rights] Dunja Mijatović and [Icelandic politician] Þórhildur Ævarsdóttir even visited me in prison. It was also due to negotiations between the Azerbaijani and German authorities, which began last October. They were very helpful; as I didn't have any documents with me when I was kidnapped and brought to Azerbaijan, the authorities provided me with a passport once these talks had started. The German authorities had granted me a visa last year to reunite with my family, but I was not released at the time; there were multiple court hearings about my case in late 2019. I even heard rumours that [President Ilham] Aliyev was planning to sign a decree pardoning me this March. That also never happened, but I was eventually released a bit later, after the parliamentary elections. ME: So is the lesson here that media campaigns and advocacy really do work in these circumstances? AM: Sure, the media campaign had a big impact and I'm very grateful. In Georgia there was a lot of noise about it; many media organisations covered the news and campaigned for me. They raised public awareness in the Caucasus and worldwide. But the campaigns, the protests in European countries didn't just trigger my release, they also helped me in other ways. They probably changed the way I was treated in prison. I'm sure that if there had not been any such campaigns, I could have faced a much, much harder time in prison. I hope that this publicity continues, and that it puts pressure on the authorities over how they treat political prisoners in Azerbaijan. ME: And how would you describe the conditions of your imprisonment? How were you treated? AM: After I crossed the Georgian border and was handed over to the Azerbaijani authorities, I wasn't tortured. But there were plenty of other restrictions: on phone calls, meetings with relatives, and so on. I wasn't allowed to meet with my mother, brothers, or any other relatives for six months. I didn't have any access to my family, to my wife, for a year. I couldn't contact friends over the telephone.