A gunman shot and gravely wounded an Azeri exile, Rahim Namazov, in a suburb of Toulouse in southern France on Friday, a police source said.

Advertising Read more

Namazov fled to France from Azerbaijan in 2010. In a video posted on YouTube in December that year, Namazov said he was jailed after writing stories about brutality against soldiers in units of the Azeri military.

Karine Michelet-Traval, the mayor of Colomiers, the town where the attack occurred, told newpaper La Depeche that Namazov was a journalist who fled to France as a political refugee, and was likely killed in “a settling of scores.”

However, French daily newspaper Le Monde interviewed other exiled Azeri journalists in France who contested Namazov's claims that he was a journalist.

Namazov’s wife was killed in the shooting. The local prosecutor is due to make a statement at 16h00 (1400 GMT).

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning Subscribe