The Azerbaijani court has completed the trial of 14 Armenian prisoners of war (POWs) in criminal cases initiated on trumped-up charges. During the trial of the criminal case against 14 Armenian prisoners of war at the Baku Court of Serious Crimes, the prosecutor demanded that two prisoners be sentenced to 5 years in prison and the other 14 to 2 years in prison for "illegally crossing the Azerbaijani border".
The Baku court made a decision to sentence two POWs to 4 years in prison, and the rest to 6 months. Initially, they were charged with "terrorism and subversion", "arms possession", "crossing the border illegally" and other articles.
Siranush Sahakyan, representative in the ECHR for the interests of captives and POWs, considers it a tactical step to save the country's reputation. In a conversation with Armenpress, the representative of the captives and POWs’ interests at the ECHR emphasized that regardless of the existence of a six-month or four-year sentence, Armenian POWs were and are still subject to immediate return.
"They are fabricated criminal cases. Our men were not involved in any other operations apart from the motherland defense. Moreover, they did not act on their own initiative, independently, but were drafted into the army and received an order from the commanders to serve in an area, which was reaffirmed to be within the borders of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic by the November 9 announcement and was not handed over to Azerbaijan as a result of the war," said Siranush Sahakyan.
According to the human rights activist, the Azerbaijani authorities are subjected to various pressures, international partners are sending signals that show the absence of terrorism and other acts.
"Now they tactically dropped some accusations, but for political reasons they still keep an act that has not been committed either- illegal border crossing. Is the context clear - the territories that Azerbaijan declares as Azeri? By doing this, Azerbaijan intimidates Armenians and Armenian servicemen, that if they perform a task in that area based on the order, they may be threatened and prosecuted."- noted Sahakyan, adding, "we do not accept, we do not recognize the trial, and any judgment made as a result of this trial."
When asked, why the Azerbaijani authorities retreated if they presented the POWs as saboteurs, terrorists, threatened them with life imprisonment, but in the end sentenced the prisoners to four years or six months in prison, Siranush Sahakyan answered that it was an imitation, because there are real chances that it's all going to fall apart, their professional team understands that too.
"At first, they will try to legitimize the accusation of illegal crossing. They will show that we really acted independently, but acting independently there are acts that they did and POWs are condemned for those actions. Since they know very well that the entire judicial process will be internationally recognized as nothing, they try to sacrifice a part of it and legitimize the other part," said Sahakyan.
Acting Prime Minister of RA Nikol Pashinyan said that as of June 17, there are 60 Armenian prisoners in Azerbaijan, and there is also a hypothesis about 110 prisoners. About 20 Armenian POWs have been falsely tried in Azerbaijan, they are accused of murder, sabotage and other crimes.
Paragraph 9 of the statement signed by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the President of the Russian Federation states that the exchange of POWs, hostages and other held persons and the bodies of the dead should be exchanged, but until now Azerbaijan has not fulfilled its obligation.