According to official Baku, Yeghegis resident Ludwig Mkrtchyan and Kapan resident Alyosha Khosrovyan have committed war crimes together. During an online discussion on this topic, international law expert Ara Ghazaryan said, “I do not know exactly what they have been accused of. I am not very interested in the accusations that were made because I want to know whether their rights are being upheld or not. What we have seen for several minutes is the same as what we saw two years ago in Karen Ghazaryan’s case.
He was sitting in a cubicle in the courtroom, isolated from the court, and there was no lawyer with him. He was not allowed to maintain contact with his relatives in Armenia, and there was no contact between the authorities of Armenia and Azerbaijan. And the European Court has already defined all of this in the Saribekyan v. Azerbaijan case as specific procedural rights. In other words, as a result of what we are seeing, no matter what they have been accused of, that entire accusation can be called into question. Not to mention that their fundamental rights are being violated. For example, why are two citizens being held in a cubicle in the courtroom? If we compare it to the case of the two Azerbaijani saboteurs in Karvachar, the lawyers were sitting next to them, and they were able to have direct contact.
There is an explanation for why Azerbaijan is doing this. Because a real trial is not taking place. This is all for show. The authorities are keeping the trial under control to avoid sudden excesses. Therefore, it is not important to me what they have been accused of. How their trial is taking place is what is important. And everything reveals that it is entirely a farce.”
Ashot Hakobyan
