Azerbaijan Sentences Karabakh Armenian Captive to 15 Years in Prison

BAKU — An Azerbaijani court sentenced a resident of Nagorno-Karabakh to 15 years in prison on Friday almost one year after he crossed into the Lachin district and was arrested by Azerbaijani security forces.

The 62-year-old man, Rashid Beglaryan, was caught less than two months before the Azerbaijani military offensive that forced Karabakh’s population to flee to Armenia and allowed Baku to gain control of the region. Karabakh authorities said in August 2023 that Beglaryan was  kidnapped  by Azerbaijani servicemen as he walked towards Armenia through the Lachin corridor.

Azerbaijani authorities subsequently charged Beglaryan with committing war crimes during the 1991-1994 Karabakh war. It is not clear whether he pleaded guilty to the accusations during his trial condemned by Armenian human rights groups and Karabakh’s leadership as a travesty of justice.

A military court in Baku sentenced another Karabakh Armenian man, Vagif Khachatryan, to 15 years in prison on similar charges last November. He was detained at an Azerbaijani checkpoint in the Lachin corridor in July 2023 while being escorted by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to Armenia for urgent medical treatment.

During his trial, Khachatryan, 68, repeatedly denied killing and deporting Karabakh’s ethnic Azerbaijani residents at the start of the first Armenian-Azerbaijani war. The Armenian Foreign Ministry condemned the  sham trial  and demanded the immediate release of Khachatryan and other  Armenian POWs and civilians still held hostage in Baku.

They include eight former political and military leaders of Karabakh who were arrested during the mass exodus of the region’s Armenian population resulting from Azerbaijan’s September 2023 military offensive. They are facing various grave accusations rejected by the Armenian government as well as current Karabakh officials.