Siranush Sahakyan, the representative of the interests of several prisoners of war and the President of the “International and Comparative Law” Center, does not rule out that the two Azerbaijanis who illegally crossed the border of Armenia will be exchanged with Armenians held in prison in Baku as part of political agreements, based on political agreements, not by implementing legal mechanisms.
It would be appropriate for those discussing these issues to make an official comment. If we examine the problem from a legal point of view, persons held responsible for a crime can be transferred to another country based on international agreements, which provide for cooperation in the criminal field, and such instruments exist; For example, to transfer to a country of his citizenship to serve a sentence in that country.
There are such agreements within the CE and CIS. In other words, the competent way to do this is handing over to serve a sentence in another country. But we know that Azerbaijan first misused this toolkit; Safarov is a vivid example of this; we also have a terrible precedent when the criminals, two saboteurs, who also took the life of a minor, again, as a result of political agreements, they were transferred without taking into account the provisions of the international cooperation agreement in the criminal sphere,” Siranuysh Sahakyan told us.
According to the May 4 decision of the General Jurisdiction Court of Syunik Region, Akshin Babirov, one of the two Azerbaijani servicemen who crossed the border of Armenia, was sentenced to eleven years, six months, and fifteen days in prison. The Azerbaijani serviceman was found guilty of illegally crossing the border, illegally transporting firearms and ammunition across the state border. He accepted the charge against him.
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Siranush Sahakyan considers the punishment of that serviceman equivalent to the act. “There is a lack of information, the facts are not specified, and without knowing the facts, it will be difficult to say, but if other actions are not attributed to him, and we are talking only about crossing the border illegally, I think it is adequate.”
Siranush Sahakyan noted that there are no developments at the political and diplomatic level regarding the work to return Armenian prisoners of war. “Failures are recorded here because agreements cannot be reached. As far as the legal path is concerned, cases have priority. We are now making additional efforts so that these processes are faster and the court is consistent in examining cases with an urgent procedure, as a result of which we can achieve a legal requirement to release the prisoners of war.
We know that the European Court considered this problem out of its scope because it was related to the investigation, and in the UN Court, the state could not achieve the application of an immediate measure. That’s why I think that if the process is accelerated, as a result of the investigation, the court will record the illegal deprivation of liberty and the execution of arbitrary sentences, and will also demand the immediate release of the prisoners of war.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
