The Baku Court of Appeal has upheld the judgments rendered yet in February 5 concerning the former political and military leaders of Artsakh and the other Armenians unlawfully held in Baku, under which they were charged with serious war crimes and sentenced to terms ranging from 20 years to life imprisonment.
Immediately after the judgment was rendered, Davit Ishkhanyan published a message through his family, in which he said, in particular: “It is clear to all of us that this judgment was decided long ago, and it is not the judicial panel that decides this judgment.” He also said that they were not even allowed to finish their statements in the Azerbaijani court. “The representatives of the prosecution, as well as the judge, were unreasonably intervening, interrupting some of us, including me, and did not allow me to present my statement in its entirety. Nevertheless, it is not a problem, we all understand that this is a political trial,” Davit Ishkhanyan stated in the recording.
The judgment and the indictment have not been provided to the defense. They were also not provided to Siranush Sahakyan, the representative of the interests of the Armenian prisoners before the ECtHR. “The judgment is not being provided to those lawyers who can effectively challenge it before domestic or international courts. This is already an obstacle to the exercise of the right, and this results in a violation of the right to lodge an individual application,” the human rights defender noted.
Regardless of whether the judgment and the indictment will be provided to the international lawyer, applications will be filed with the ECtHR in all of the cases in the coming weeks, Siranush Sahakyan said in an interview with “Azatutyun.” “If the judgment is not provided to the family or to me as an international lawyer, we will nevertheless be able to challenge it. The difference is that we will also add the issue of the impossibility of accessing the document, which is related to the right to lodge an application,” said Siranush Sahakyan.
Earlier, it was possible to obtain only the judgment concerning Artsakh’s former State Minister Ruben Vardanyan, and an application in that case has already been filed with the European Court of Human Rights.