Nagorno-Karabakh leaders sentenced in Azerbaijan

Seven former Nagorno-Karabakh officials held by Azerbaijan were sentenced Thursday by a Baku military court, with five receiving life imprisonment and two receiving 20-year terms, Azerbaijani media reported. The court found them guilty on charges including crimes against humanity, war crimes, “genocide,” and terrorism.

The officials who received life sentences were former President Arayik Harutyunyan, Foreign Minister Davit Babayan, Speaker of the National Assembly Davit Ishkhanyan, Deputy Commander of the Defense Army Davit Manukyan, and former Commander of the Artsakh Defense Army Levon Mnatsakanyan. 

The two other leaders, former presidents Arkady Ghukasyan and Bako Sahakyan, received 20-year prison sentences, as Azerbaijan’s Criminal Code bars life imprisonment for defendants over 65. The only other leader in Azerbaijani custody, former Artsakh State Minister Ruben Vardanyan, was tried separately and is still awaiting sentencing. 

The leaders were detained between late September and early October 2023. Their arrests followed Azerbaijan’s September 19 military attack on Nagorno-Karabakh, which came after a nine-month blockade and triggered the mass exodus of the region’s Armenian population. 

Nagorno-Karabakh civilians captured during the same operation were also sentenced Thursday, with Madat Babayan and Melikset Pashayan receiving 19 years in prison, 18 years for Garik Martirosyan, 16 years for Davit Alaverdyan and Levon Balayan, and 15 years for Gurgen Stepanyan, and Erik Ghazaryan. 

At least some of the Nagorno-Karabakh civilians captured during the same operation were also sentenced Thursday, with Madat Babayan and Melikset Pashayan receiving 19 years in prison, and Davit Alaverdyan receiving 16 years. 

Human rights activists have widely denounced the proceedings as “sham trials.” The European Parliament last year overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling for the prisoners’ “unconditional and immediate release.”

International human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Freedom House, say Azerbaijan has a large number of politically motivated prosecutions and that the authorities exercise control over the courts. The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture has said that torture and ill-treatment of detainees in Azerbaijan are “widespread and not eradicated.”

“This is the result of a political order, and Azerbaijani courts have acted as ratifiers of political decisions,” human rights activist Siranush Sahakyan told CivilNet in response to the verdicts.   

Sahakyan described the verdicts as predetermined, and characterized them as “acts of personal revenge against individuals who exercised their legitimate right for self-determination.”

Artsakh’s former Human Rights Defender Artak Beglaryan called the verdicts “a record of our failure, and especially the failure of the Armenian authorities and the international community, which did nothing to secure their release or even protect their procedural rights.” 

He pointed to the lack of international observers and diplomats at the trial, and the expulsion of the International Committee of the Red Cross from Azerbaijan, which had served as a lifeline for the prisoners to the outside world.

“I am sure that our compatriots have been subjected to torture and are being subjected to it,” added Beglaryan. 

He noted that the prisoners’ sentencing has opened a wider window for a political solution, an opportunity he says Armenian authorities should seize quickly, especially ahead of the visit of US Vice President JD Vance to Armenia and Azerbaijan next week. 

Ahead of Vance’s visit, Catholicos Aram I of the Great House of Cilicia said he had asked the U.S. vice president to seek the prisoners’ release during his trip. The French National Assembly also adopted a resolution yesterday calling for their release by a vote of 183 to one. 

Last month, Azerbaijan released four other Armenian prisoners in what was widely seen as a swap. That same day, Armenia extradited two convicted mercenaries to Syria via Turkey.