Attorney Siranush Sahakyan has announced that an application has been lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of Ruben Vardanyan.
The full text of Siranush Sahakyan’s statement is provided below.
On July 19, 2026, I submitted an official application to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) regarding the case of Ruben Vardanyan, a citizen of the Republic of Armenia currently held at the Umbaki Penitentiary Complex in Azerbaijan. I will be representing Ruben Vardanyan’s interests before the ECtHR.
The application details violations of eight articles of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the Convention), supported by comprehensive legal and factual arguments.
The Baku Military Court issued its verdict in Ruben Vardanyan’s case on February 17, 2026, sentencing him to 20 years in prison. The court did not read the judgment in its entirety.
Later, from the verdict made available through his family, it became clear that Vardanyan was found “guilty” on 41 counts, based on 21 articles of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
Vardanyan’s individual guilt was not substantiated by facts or evidence in the verdict. Instead, the court concluded that the “criminal community,” referring to the administration of the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh, had operated in Nagorno-Karabakh since 1988, and that Vardanyan joined this “community” in December 2020, even though he was residing in Moscow at that time.
The court interpreted Vardanyan’s assumption of a civilian administrative post as a violent seizure of power, his commercial and charitable activities as illegal entrepreneurship and financing of terrorism, and his entry into Nagorno-Karabakh through the Lachin Corridor as an illegal crossing of Azerbaijan’s state border.
Vardanyan did not appeal the verdict, considering the trial staged and predetermined, and all domestic remedies ineffective. Indeed, it is impossible to protect one’s rights within a system that inherently denies the right to a fair trial. In these circumstances, he chose to seek justice through international legal mechanisms.
Siranush Sahakyan
Licensed attorney,
President of the International and Comparative Law Center,
Representative of the interests of Armenian prisoners at the ECtHR