On June 24, representatives in the case “V. T. and Others v. Azerbaijan” - Siranush Sahakyan, Araks Melkonyan, Haykuhi Harutyunyan, Ara Ghazaryan, and Hasmik Harutyunyan - held a press conference dedicated to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case “V. T. and Others v. Azerbaijan.”
The case concerns the torture and killing of Armenian serviceman H. T., who had been rendered hors de combat as a result of injuries inflicted by the Azerbaijani armed forces during the Four-Day April War of 2016. The ECHR has delivered a judgment, providing a legal assessment of the factual and legal circumstances of the case.
During the press conference, the applicants’ representatives presented the Court’s findings and also addressed the possible legal and political implications of the judgment from the perspectives of both justice and the international protection of human rights.
Following the publication of the judgment, the Azerbaijani authorities reacted negatively to the Court’s decision. According to Azerbaijani media reports, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the ECHR’s decision as unfair, biased, and contrary to the norms of international law, and sent a note of protest to the European Court in this regard.
Human rights defender Siranush Sahakyan, director of the International and Comparative Law Center, emphasized that Baku’s reaction demonstrates an aggressive attitude toward the judgment, as in Azerbaijan “instead of expressing remorse for what happened and committing to changing their practices, they accuse international institutions of unfairness. They have also advanced the false thesis that the European Court reached such a judgment on the basis of only a few testimonies. Let us clarify that in this case we have an unimaginably large body of evidence: the vehicle that was struck, the bodies for which forensic examinations regarding the injuries exist, other forensic examinations through which the head of the murdered Armenian officer was identified, we identified the perpetrator, there is his interview in which he confessed to the crime he committed.”
The press conference also presented legal assessments of the judgment, possible avenues for its implementation, and the international legal and political significance of the case. Referring to state obligations and the importance of evidence collection, Sahakyan noted that the state is also an internal actor, and that the quality of investigations into crimes committed against its citizens in the Republic of Armenia is an important factor.
“If the state at least properly fulfills this obligation and does not initiate interstate proceedings, that is one issue; it is another issue if the state loses evidence and fails, through official investigative mechanisms, to uncover and document what occurred. This omission can significantly reduce the ability of human rights defenders to effectively represent victims,” said Sahakyan.