Who is Vicken?
Vicken Euljekjian is a 44-year-old Christian Armenian and a descendant of survivors of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. He is a citizen of Lebanon and Armenia. In 2020, he relocated to Nagorno-Karabakh to establish a business and build a new life there with his family. Vicken is a devout Christian and has a tattoo of a cross on his hand, which was burnt and obliterated by the Azerbaijani forces while being illegally held in their custody.
Vicken’s Current Location and Detention Details
On November 10, 2020, the day after the 2020 ceasefire agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Vicken was captured by Azerbaijani Special Forces while he was collecting his personal belongings to evacuate from Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh, which they had overtaken. He was neither a fighter nor a combatant. He was an Armenian civilian who was kidnapped and unlawfully transferred to prison in Baku, where he was held incommunicado for nearly seven months.
On June 14, 2021, Vicken was illegally tried by the Baku Military Court, found guilty, and sentenced to 20 years in prison in a sham trial. He was not allowed any independent legal representation, investigation, or defense. Vicken was wrongfully charged and tried on fabricated charges of participating as a mercenary in a military conflict, terrorism, and crossing the state border with violence or threats of violence.
Vicken was not allowed to communicate with family or counsel. Today, Vicken is serving an illegal sentence of 20 years in prison in Azerbaijan.
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The charges against Vicken were politically and ethnically motivated, without any substantive evidence presented during the trial. The court disregarded the defense’s call for acquittal, and Vicken was sentenced to 20 years. He remains detained in Baku, presumably in Gobustan Prison, which is notorious for its inhumane conditions and high suicide rates among inmates.
