Davit Ishkhanyan, one of the eight former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh jailed in Azerbaijan, condemned their trials and urged Armenians to stay “strong” in a statement circulated through his family on Wednesday.
Ishkhanyan also effectively joined fellow prisoner Ruben Vardanyan in calling on Armenia’s human rights ombudswoman, Anahit Manasyan, to visit them and the other captives in an Azerbaijani prison. He said Manasyan would thus receive more information about “blatant violations” of human rights and international law, which he said occurred during the trials and criminal investigations that preceded them.
The former Karabakh Armenian leaders were captured right after the 2023 Azerbaijani offensive that restored Baku’s full control over Karabakh and forced the region’s Armenian population to flee to Armenia. They all denied a long list of war crimes charges levelled against them. An Azerbaijani military court sentenced five of them, including Ishkhanian, to life imprisonment and gave Vardanyan and the two others 20-year jail sentences in February this year at the end of two trials denounced by Amnesty International as a “travesty.”
ARF Bureau and Artsakh Parliament Member Ishkhanyan, who served as Karabakh’s parliament speaker, cited the following excerpt from his concluding remarks at his trial, which he said were cut short by the presiding judge: “This trial was opened not against 15 persons, this trial was opened against the Armenian people and the Armenian statehood with clear aims and a long-term strategy.”
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev again branded the Armenian prisoners as “war criminals” when he addressed a European Political Community summit in Yerevan on Monday via video link. Pashinian did not respond to Aliyev, drawing strong criticism from the Armenian opposition.
Below is an English translation of his appeal in Armenian. Click here to listen to his statement in Armenian.
Greetings to everyone.
We learned from the press that Ruben Vardanyan appealed to the Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia, asking her to visit him. I do not know whether the respected Defender will have the sense of responsibility and determination to visit us as well. If she does, she will gain more detailed information and see firsthand how the investigation was conducted, the extent of the serious and blatant violations that marked its entirety. Both the investigation and trial were carried out with blatant violations of human rights, international law, international norms, and even the procedural requirements of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
During my final statement at the end of the trial, I was unable to deliver 30 to 40 percent of my remarks. But I managed to express what I now want to repeat to my people:
“This trial is not against 15 individuals. This trial is against the Armenian people and Armenian statehood, with clear objectives and a long-term strategy. My suspicion of this began during the investigation, and the trial itself turned that suspicion into conviction. Time will prove the truth of my words and thoughts.”
Yesterday Azerbaijan’s Human Rights Defender, Ombudsperson Sabina Aliyeva visited us and we relayed information to her. I’ve had a letter of appeal prepared for her since March 12, but I was unable to meet with or deliver it to her for various reasons in these past months. Yesterday I finally handed over my appeal, and in it I had one clear request: that she help ensure the full text of our verdict, in both Azerbaijani and Armenian, is delivered to my family and relatives.
The Human Rights Defender said she would ensure the Azerbaijani version is delivered to my family and that she would try to facilitate the matter.
I now want to verbally address the Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia and ask that she intervene and obtain from her Human Rights Defender counterpart and relevent Azerbaijani bodies, the full Armenian and Azerbaijani texts of our indictments and verdict, and provide them to my family and relatives.
In these difficult times, I wish our people strength of spirit, strength of will, and unity. And I must say: stay strong.