A former high-ranking official of the Georgian State Security Service accused the former prime minister of personally ordering the 2017 abduction of an Azeri journalist who was then forcefully taken to neighboring Azerbaijan where a court sentenced him to prison in a trial that was seen as unfair.

An Azerbaijani journalist was released on Tuesday after having served two of the six years he was sentenced to by a Baku court despite criticism from human rights organizations which claimed the charges were baseless.

The Azerbaijan Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by Afgan Mukhtarli, the journalist who disappeared from a Tbilisi street in May of 2017 and reappeared two days later in a Baku courtroom.

The border guard who accused an Azerbaijani journalist of assaulting him while illegally crossing the border from Georgia failed to appear on Friday  at an Appeals Court hearing in Shaki.

Afgan Mukhtarli, the Azerbaijan journalist who last year disappeared from a Tbilisi street and was next seen in a Baku prison, was sentenced to six years in Azerbaijani prisons on Friday for illegally crossing the border with 10,000 of undeclared euros and assaulting a border guard.

Lawyers for Afgan Mukhtarli, the Azerbaijan journalist who disappeared from Tbilisi and was next seen two days later in a Baku prison, asked a judge on Thursday to further question a witness of what Mukhtarli claims was his abduction.

Afgan Mukhtarli, the journalist who disappeared from Tbilisi and reappeared two days later in a Baku jail, said during a court hearing on Thursday that President Aliyev ordered his May 29 kidnapping in Georgia.

Authorities in Azerbaijan and Georgia are facing mounting criticism for their possible role in the apparent kidnapping of Afgan Mukhtarli, the Azerbaijani journalist who disappeared from Tbilisi on May 29 and was next seen two days later being led into a Baku courtroom.

Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Mukhtarli is brought to court in Baku, Azerbaijan on May 31 after disappearing from Tbilisi, Georgia, where he lives. (Photo: Reuters/Aziz Karimov)