The Farce of the Baku Trial: The Charges Against Armenian Prisoners of War Are Unproven

Siranush Sahakyan, head of the “Center for International and Comparative Law” and advocate for the interests of Armenian prisoners of war at the European Court, spoke to “Azatutyun Radiokayan” about the trials of Armenian prisoners of war underway in Baku, emphasizing that the actions attributed to the Armenian prisoners of war have not been proven.

According to Sahakyan, the testimonies given in court by Azerbaijani witnesses were not only identical in content, but all of them also stated that they did not personally know the Armenian prisoners of war and had had no contact with them. “We are dealing with abstract acts. However, no concrete acts attributed to the defendants, no links between them and the victims, nor any direct connections between the accused and the events were ever established,” said Sahakyan.

The trial of the Artsakh military-political leadership and other prisoners has ended. According to the Azerbaijani state-run media outlet “AzerTaj,” the indictments will be heard next week.

The trials taking place in the Baku court are merely formal in nature. The court hearings have been held without the presence of independent media or international organizations, and information about the proceedings is available exclusively from Azerbaijani state sources. “Of course, the guilty verdicts and the harshest forms of punishment are predictable for us, as they are essentially the direct outcome of a political order,” said Sahakyan.

According to the human rights defender, one of the latest pieces of evidence proving the fabricated nature of the trial is the fact that only two days were allocated for the prosecution’s speeches, whereas cases of such scope usually require weeks. Sahakyan predicts that the verdicts may be announced before the end of the year. “The task is to overturn and nullify these unlawful verdicts within the legal system, and the only way to do that is to challenge the process in supranational judicial bodies, specifically, to have international courts examine the violations that we have repeatedly raised in the public sphere and give them legal recognition by declaring the judicial acts illegitimate,” said Sahakyan.

Is the Armenian government striving to achieve in international instances that the verdicts made in violation of the right to a fair trial are recognized as illegitimate? "If developments occur, such as, for example, the abandonment of interstate complaints, I think the families of Armenian prisoners of war should organize themselves and independently implement the protection of their rights with their own means," says Sahakyan.

Referring to the trial of Ruben Vardanyan, Sahakyan noted that it is also nearing its end. He was the only prisoner who had an Azerbaijani lawyer. However, Vardanyan refused the services of that lawyer, stating that the trial was a farce and that he was deprived of the right to defense. His international lawyer was never granted permission to enter Baku.

Sahakyan also reported that the Government of Azerbaijan is obliged to submit a report to the European Court of Human Rights regarding the conditions of detention of the prisoners and other related circumstances. The deadline is November 4. “We are waiting for the deadline to pass, after which we will see what documents Azerbaijan has provided and what conclusions we can draw based on their examination,” said Sahakyan.