The Center for Truth and Justice (CFTJ) has requested the government of Azerbaijan allow a team of distinguished international lawyers to travel to Baku to attend and monitor the upcoming trials of Armenian prisoners, set to begin on January 17, 2025.
“These prisoners have been illegally held in pretrial detention with fabricated accusations, without access to legitimate legal representation. They have little to no contact with family members. International trial monitors are necessary to hold the Azerbaijani judicial system accountable for what is expected to be closed and secret trials,” said Gor Mnatsakanyan, President of the Center for Truth and Justice.
The trials involve eight political and military leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh which was ethnically cleansed by Azerbaijan’s ten-month-long blockade followed by military aggression in September of 2023, when 120,000 Armenians were forced to flee to Armenia.
The international monitors awaiting visas from Azerbaijan include Ana Maria Careaga, Director of the Instituto Espacio para la Memoria and Director of the Institute for Human Rights Studies at Atlantida University; Claudia Viviana Rocca, lawyer and President of the Argentine Association of Jurists, Professor at the National University of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and National University of Moreno, Argentina; Irene Victoria Massimino, lawyer and expert in human rights and international criminal law; Former Rapporteur of the High Criminal Court of Buenos Aires; Professor of Law; USA; Avi Singh, Senior Advocate and International Criminal Lawyer.
CFTJ requests immediate action from Azerbaijani authorities to secure visas and ensure the safety of these observers throughout their visit.
CFTJ is a US-based non-profit organization composed of attorneys, advocates, and professionals dedicated to amplifying the voices of victims affected by war crimes, displacement, mass atrocities, and genocide. CFTJ is home to over 600 testimonies from victims of war crimes.
In a press release issued on January 13, 2025, LIBERTAS (Collective in France & Switzerland campaigning for the release of Armenian state hostages interned in Azerbaijan) “The trial[s] starting on January 17 concern sixteen of them. Far from meeting the standards of international law, it will be a parody of justice, before a court that will be neither independent nor impartial.
“The detainees are being criminally prosecuted on spurious, politically-motivated charges. These include allegations of genocide, slavery, enforced disappearance of persons, torture, financing of terrorism, [and] creation of a criminal association, among others. In a familiar tactic,
the Azerbaijani authorities claim to be turning the tables to hide the crimes they themselves have committed.
“The Azerbaijani lawyers assigned to them work under pressure from the prosecutor’s office, which is itself controlled by the government; foreign lawyers are not allowed in Azerbaijan. […] No one doubts the political nature of the trial, designed to validate both the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh Armenians and future aggression against Armenia.”
Libertas calls on:
- the EU and its member states, the Council of Europe (CoE), international human rights organizations, and the OSCE, which has presided over peace negotiations for 3 decades, to stop turning a blind eye to the dangerous travesty in the making.
- the Quai d’Orsay to monitor the form and content of these hearings, sending diplomats from the French Embassy in Baku as early as January 17.