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Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev issued a decree on Wednesday pardoning French national Martin Ryan, who had been serving a 10-year prison term for espionage since his sentencing in March, alongside 19 other individuals. The group comprised 14 Azerbaijani citizens, two Turkish nationals, one person holding dual Russian-Israeli citizenship and one Pakistani national, according to the presidential website reported by Reuters. Aliyev’s office stated that the decisions took into account the prisoners’ personal qualities, state of health, family circumstances, behavior and time served, as Bloomberg noted in its coverage of the announcement.
Ryan, who also carries British citizenship, was arrested in December 2023 while working for a food-import company that offered consultancy services in Baku, Reuters reported. He denied charges of gathering intelligence on Azerbaijan’s army during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, a position supported by the French government which called the allegations false and argued that he had been caught in diplomatic crossfire. French officials had pressed for his release for months, framing the case as unjust detention amid fluctuating relations between Paris and Baku.
The pardon came one day after the EU removed Alisher Usmanov from its sanctions list, a step that three European diplomats told Reuters was linked to Azerbaijani pressure on France over two imprisoned French citizens. France had delayed renewal of the broader sanctions package citing national security concerns until Usmanov was delisted, while Luxembourg successfully added Mikhail Fridman to the exemptions because of his separate legal dispute with the country, the Financial Times detailed. A second Frenchman identified by French weekly Challenges as Anass Derraz, an employee of water management firm Saur sentenced to 12 years on corruption charges in 2025 with the term later reduced, remained in custody and was not included in the pardons.
EU envoys agreed to extend the sanctions regime covering roughly 3,000 Russian individuals and entities for three years instead of the prior six-month renewal cycle, even as they dropped both oligarchs in a compromise that Latvia ultimately allowed by abstaining, according to a Politico report on the closed-door negotiations. The decision marked the first time the bloc had removed members of Russia’s billionaire elite who had not publicly condemned Moscow’s war in Ukraine, exposing divisions that drew criticism from Kyiv and Baltic states wary of setting a precedent for political deals, Reuters assessments found. France’s last-minute push surprised several partners and risked the entire list lapsing before the agreement was reached through written procedure.
Usmanov, a Uzbek-born metals and mining magnate with longstanding business interests across Russia, was first sanctioned by the EU in 2022 over what the bloc described as particularly close ties to President Vladimir Putin that underpinned his economic position, an official EU explanation stated. He has rejected any involvement in the Kremlin’s decisions on Ukraine and had seen previous delisting efforts that reportedly included advocacy from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, various diplomatic accounts indicated. Fridman, co-founder of Alfa Group, faced a similar asset freeze and travel ban that Luxembourg had long sought to lift amid his $16 billion legal claim against the country.
Bilateral relations between France and Azerbaijan had shown signs of thawing earlier this year when President Emmanuel Macron met with Aliyev in May, after which the Azerbaijani leader spoke of entering a new era of cooperation, the BBC reported from its review of their discussions. Ryan’s detention had been viewed in Paris as tied to lingering tensions over regional conflicts including Nagorno-Karabakh, where Azerbaijan asserted military gains that altered the geopolitical landscape. The case highlighted how prisoner releases can intersect with sanctions policy, even as the pardon decree closed one chapter while leaving Derraz’s situation unresolved.
