Two Azerbaijani Servicemen Charged for Illegally Crossing of Armenian Border

YEREVAN — Two Azerbaijani soldiers, who crossed into Armenia earlier this month have been arrested and formally charged with illegal crossing of Armenian border, illegal transportation of weapons across Armenian border, as well as with illegal storage and transportation of weapons and ammunition.

The Azerbaijani soldiers were apprehended by Armenian civilians and handed over to law-enforcement authorities.

Armenian prosecutors have initiated public criminal prosecution against both, the press service of the Armenian Prosecutor General’s Office reported.

One of the Azerbaijanis is identified as Agshin Babirov and the second as Hussein Akhundov. The decision to place them under arrest was made by a first instance criminal court in Yerevan.

On April 10, the Armenian Defense Ministry reported the detention of an Azerbaijani soldier on Armenian territory. The second Azerbaijani was detained three days later. They are believed to have crossed into Armenia from Azerbaijani exclave Nakhijevan.

The Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonyan said last week that the second Azerbaijani is suspected of murdering a security guard working for a Syunik-based mining company.

The second Azerbaijani was detained by a group of young men nor far from the town of Kapan. According to one of them, quoted by Armenian news outlets, the Azerbaijani soldier possessed the murdered guard’s mobile phone.

Later a video was circulated on Instagram in which the Azerbaijani bragged about killing Armenians and saying at the same time that “we are not traitors of our fatherland.”