Tuesday, November 14 2023 13:00

ArmInfo. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention energetically condemns the 15-year  prison sentence handed down to Mr. Vagif Khachatryan on 7 November 2023 by the Republic of Azerbaijan. 

The Lemkin Institute exhorts the international community to persuade  the regime of President Aliyev into promptly releasing all Armenian  persons under its jurisdiction and to refrain from providing any kind  of assistance that could worsen the suffering of the victims of the  Artsakh genocide or embolden Azerbaijan to perpetrate any unlawful  act of aggression.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention energetically condemns  the 15-year prison sentence handed down to Mr. Vagif Khachatryan on 7  November 2023 by the Republic of Azerbaijan.

A resident of the Republic of Artsakh, Mr. Khachatryan was detained  at the illegal Hakari Bridge checkpoint on 29 July 2023 while he was  being evacuated from his homeland by the International Committee of  the Red Cross for urgent medical treatment. This checkpoint was  established by Azerbaijan in the Lachin Corridor in April 2023, four  months after Azerbaijan's illegal blockade of the same corridor on 12  December 2022. This blockade left the then 120,000 inhabitants of  Artsakh without essential goods and services, constituting a textbook  case of genocide-by-attrition, as accurately observed by the former  prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Mr. Luis Moreno  Ocampo.

Mr. Khachatryan's abduction took place before Azerbaijan's military  aggression against Artsakh on 19 September 2023, which resulted in  massacre and atrocity and the consequent flight of almost 100 percent  of its indigenous Armenian population to neighboring Armenia. The  aggression, atrocity and forced displacement amount to a very  thorough genocide of an ancient, continuous indigenous civilization.

Upon his abduction, Mr. Khachatryan was immediately accused by  Azerbaijani authorities of committing war crimes during the First  Nagorno-Karabakh War in the 1990s, charges he has repeatedly denied  and for which Azerbaijan has offered no independent evidence.

In this context, the Lemkin Institute recalls its "Statement on the  Ongoing Imprisonment of Armenian Officials of the Republic of Artsakh  by the Republic of Azerbaijan," issued on 27 October 2023. In that  statement, the Lemkin Institute noted that: "At the present time,  [Mr. Khachatryan] is on trial in Azerbaijan's infamous judicial  system, where violations of the fundamental guarantee of due process  have become alarmingly common. In fact, according to one observer,  Mr. Khachatryan's statements are intentionally being mistranslated  for Azerbaijani and Turkish audiences. Additionally, photos of Mr.   Khachatryan have raised concerns about his potential mistreatment and  deteriorating health."

According to the news outlet News.am, the prosecution explained that  Azerbaijani law does not allow Mr.  Khachatryan to be sentenced to  life imprisonment, as he is over 65 years old. According to another  news agency, Mr. Khachatryan is scheduled to spend the initial five  years of his 15-year sentence in prison, followed by 10 years in a  high-security correctional facility. This seemingly innocuous,  legalist discourse, however, is nothing but the gilded cloak that  hides the ordinary dagger: a miscarriage of justice of the highest  order.

The law often serves to legitimize those in power, particularly  within dictatorial regimes like the one led by Azerbaijani President  Mr. Ilham Aliyev. Given Mr. Khachatryan's advanced age and heart  condition, the latter being the cause of his emergency evacuation  from Artsakh on 29 July 2023, his 15-year prison sentence amounts to  a death penalty, concealed beneath the superficially benign fa‡ade of  an unmistakably oppressive and genocidal regime.

Once again, the Lemkin Institute recalls the ongoing and unlawful  imprisonment of the eight high-ranking Armenian officials, as well as  the abandonment of dozens and perhaps hundreds of Armenian civilian  captives and POWs, as outlined in its aforementioned statement, who  might soon share the same fate as Mr.  Khachatryan, if not worse.  Time and time again, Azerbaijan has shown its repudiation of a  law-based international order, including its obligations under  international humanitarian and human rights law.

The Lemkin Institute exhorts the international community, which seems  to have forgotten the commission of atrocity crimes in the  Nagorno-Karabakh region, as well as the looming threat of an invasion  of the Republic of Armenia by Azerbaijan, to persuade the regime of  President Aliyev into promptly releasing all Armenian persons under  its jurisdiction and to refrain from providing any kind of assistance  that could worsen the suffering of the victims of the Artsakh  genocide or embolden Azerbaijan to perpetrate any unlawful act of  aggression.