Ignoring the November 9, 2020 statement, Baku continues the illegal trial of Armenian captives. None of the captives in Azerbaijan is acquitted, and each new verdict is more severe than the previous one.
The last case. Armenian prisoners of war (POWs) Ludvig Mkrtchyan and Alyosha Khosrovyan, who appeared in court from Baku prison, were sentenced to 20 years in prison. Armenian citizens must spend the first 10 years of their imprisonment in prison and the rest in solitary confinement.
In general, the Baku District Court has already made dozens of decisions against the Armenian captives, but according to lawyer Ara Ghazaryan, the legal means of their return have not been exhausted, Ghazaryan singles out two mechanisms.
“One of them is that, if those people are acquitted, what do we not hope for? And second, if Armenia applies and Azerbaijan agrees to extradite the convicts to Armenia so that those people can continue to serve their sentences in Armenia?” says lawyer Ara Ghazaryan.
In international practice, there are many cases of extradition, but in this case, the main problem is that the process of POWs is not legal, but political. Therefore, the easiest option for extradition would be the agreement between Yerevan and Baku, Ghazaryan thinks.
“It is known that Azerbaijan uses it as a lever to put pressure on Armenia. It means that Azerbaijan will always look at its political expediency to agree to extradition,” Ghazaryan says.
Armenia and Azerbaijan joined the European Convention on Extradition. Formally, the lack of diplomatic relations between the countries may be an obstacle, but even in such cases, the European Court has ruled that Azerbaijan is obliged to cooperate with Armenia within the framework of the European Convention on Human Rights. The decision of Baku may be influenced by the forthcoming decisions of the European Court, the lawyer is sure.
Ara Ghazaryan is convinced that Armenian POWs who have been sentenced to imprisonment will not stay in Baku prisons for long.
