The former chair of the Constitutional Court staff, former governor, and ambassador Edgar Ghazaryan welcomed the return of 15 POWs and especially congratulated their relatives. However, he considered such demonstrations of that process to be clear trafficking.
“First, this is a bilateral crime that is being disguised against the background of humanitarianism, granting people freedom, and creating emotional public moods. But in reality, two crimes took place at the same time.
The first is treason against the state clearly defined by the Criminal Code. I hope that law enforcement bodies will use this interview as a statement about a crime. Most likely, several high-ranking officials are also involved in that because information of a military nature, which is a very important state secret, has been officially passed to the enemy, the hostile country. The maps of specific minefields that indicate how many mines are planted and where they are placed are top secret state information, and to take them and give them to the enemy is a criminal offense.
The second side of the crime was committed by the President of Azerbaijan and that country’s authorities who were involved in human trafficking. If they present this as being the return of POWs, then official Baku- both Ilham Aliyev and Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeyhun Bayramov- have announced that Azerbaijan does not have any POWs, the issue of POWs is resolved, and Azerbaijan has already returned the POWs and everyone else. And those who have remained are criminals from their perspective, and they must be sentenced.
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If the issue of POWs has been resolved, but you are now exchanging people, then it is important to understand why. In other words, according to the Azerbaijani perspective, they are not referring to POWs, but specific people. And returning people to one side based on some conditions or reasons while having some ulterior motives is typical trafficking. This means that they are involved in human trafficking.”
When asked if there is any instance, individual, regulation, or procedure authorized to make a decision on providing top secret maps of another country in the world and state secrets in general, Edgar Ghazaryan responded. “No one has and can not have such authority because publishing information that is a state secret is a crime, and passing it to the enemy, which can harm the security, territorial integrity, and interests of the state, is treason against the state outlined in the Criminal Code. That is the same as asking who can commit treason against the state. No one can commit treason. Anyone who does needs to be punished. Mechanisms and procedures for that cannot exist. You cannot have explanations for killing people. A person is not prime minister to give away our national interests to foreigners and enemies, but to serve our state and people. And if that person is unable to do that with their knowledge, authority, and diplomatic abilities, then the best path is resignation.”
Ashot Hakobyan
