Charges against Vardanyan and others `purely political` - media  outlet

ArmInfo.The charges against Vardanyan and others are "purely political", bne IntelliNews reports quoting Irene Victoria Massimino, a lawyer and professor specialising in human rights and international criminal law, as saying. 

For David Vardanyan, September 27, 2023 is a day he'll never forget.  It was the day he awoke to photos of his father, Russian-Armenian  billionaire Ruben Vardanyan, in the custody of Azerbaijani security  forces.

"It seems so long ago, more than 480 days already," David says. "I  found out about it on social media. At first, I was in complete  disbelief that something like this could happen. And then I saw that  these images had been posted very intentionally by Azerbaijani state  media, to show every Armenian in the world that they're no longer  safe," he says.

Ruben Vardanyan's arrest came amidst the dramatic collapse and  complete ethnic cleansing of Nagorno- Karabakh, the ethnic  Armenian-populated breakaway enclave of Azerbaijan. A week earlier,  Azerbaijan had launched a full-scale offensive to finally crush all  resistance in the de facto independent territory, forcing a total  capitulation by the republic in just 24 hours. What followed was the  complete exodus of the territory's population, with more than 100,000  ethnic Armenians fleeing their ancestral homeland in just days, as  the Republic of Artsakh came to an end.

But not all would be allowed to leave. A number of individuals -  mostly high-ranking Karabakh Armenian politicians - were detained as  Azerbaijani forces took full control of the territory. These included  three of the republic's former presidents, as well as Vardanyan, who  had moved to the territory in August 2022 and briefly served as its  state minister. After more than a year of captivity, a series of  trials against 16 of the detained, including Vardanyan, who faces  life in prison, began on January 17. The proceedings to date have  been extremely opaque, with only Azerbaijani state media allowed to  cover them and no international observers present.

The charges against Vardanyan and others are "purely political", says  Irene Victoria Massimino, a lawyer and professor specialising in  human rights and international criminal law.

"In the overall context of [Azerbaijan's] persecution of Armenians,  especially the Armenians of Artsakh, these charges are based only on  politics. They are fabricated by Azerbaijan," she says.

Massimino is one of four lawyers on whose behalf the Center for Truth  and Justice, a California-based, Karabakh-focused advocacy  organisation, has applied for visas to Azerbaijan to observe the  trials. They have yet to receive a response from Baku, but it is  unlikely to matter - Massimino says the chance of anything  approximating justice resulting from the proceedings is "zero". 

"I tend to quote a lot the Freedom House report on Azerbaijan,"  Massimino says. "The country scored seven points out of 100. It is  absolutely unfree, and one of the main reasons for that in the most  recent Freedom House report is the blockade of Artsakh [from December  2022 to September 2023] and the persecution of Armenians. So these  are show trials. They are absolutely unfair and based on political  charges," she says.

While Azerbaijan, under the autocratic rule of President Ilham  Aliyev, is no stranger to abrogations of justice, the nine-month  Karabakh blockade was extraordinary even by Baku's standards. More  than 100,000 Karabakh Armenian citizens were brought to the brink of  starvation by Azerbaijan's closure of the only road linking the  enclave with the outside world. When the International Court of  Justice ordered in February 2023 that Baku open the road and 'ensure  unimpeded movement' between Karabakh and Armenia, Azerbaijan  summarily ignored it. No consequences followed, and the humanitarian  situation would continue to worsen for another seven months before  Baku launched its military offensive.

Amidst the blockade, one of the most public figures representing the  people of Karabakh was Ruben Vardanyan. Vardanyan gave dozens of  interviews for international media on the deteriorating conditions in  Karabakh, drawing the ire of Azerbaijan, who targeted him repeatedly  in scathing rhetorical attacks. His son believes that this advocacy  was what led Baku to single him out.

"One statistic that kind of drives the point home is that during the  three months when Dad was state minister [November 2022 to February  2023], he gave more interviews to Western media than all the  presidents of Karabakh did for 30 years combined," David Vardanyan  says. "I think the level of attention that Dad brought to  Nagorno-Karabakh after he decided to live there did not fit with  Azerbaijan's playbook. They had hoped that they would slowly make  things unlivable there and force people out gradually - kind of a  'quiet ethnic cleansing' that the world will not notice. So it's very  clear that they were not happy with the kind of attention they were  now getting to the injustices being done there," David says.

Eventually, Baku got its opportunity to punish Ruben directly - an  opportunity that the Azerbaijani government is clearly relishing. By  holding such show trials against Ruben and his 15 compatriots,  Azerbaijan is hoping to flex its muscles and intimidate both its  neighbour, Armenia, and its own citizens, Massimino says.

"For Azerbaijan, this is a trophy - that they finally have the  leaders of the Artsakh government, who were fighting for  self-determination for so long," she says. "This constant  intimidation of Armenians is intended to show power, most likely as a  political tool for negotiations [with Armenia]. But I also think that  it's embedded in the DNA of authoritarian regimes that they must  apprehend individuals and punish them for daring to exercise their  rights. There are many other political prisoners in Azerbaijan,  Azerbaijani political prisoners, who will also receive this message." 

Despite the obvious lack of fairness or judicial due process in the  trials, they have generated almost no international response to date.  With the exception of a resolution by the Parliamentary Assembly of  the Council of Europe (PACE) calling for Azerbaijan to release both  the detained Karabakh Armenian leaders and the many Armenian POWs  held by Baku, there have been few, if any, statements by Western  countries on the matter.

"The lack of any attention by the international community [to these  trials] astonishes me," Massimino says.  "Both the 'caviar diplomacy'  and energy resources of Azerbaijan, their oil and gas, contribute to  this. They have strong ties with many European countries, and it's  also a conflict that has received much less attention than other  conflicts since 2020. I don't understand why the media has put so  little attention on the blockade in particular. Nine months of  blockade of an entire people, and no one paid attention." 

David Vardanyan says that the lack of Western political pressure on  Azerbaijan was sadly predictable.

"I think the EU is completely losing its credibility when [President  of the European Commission Ursula] von der Leyen calls Azerbaijan a  'reliable partner,'" he says. 

"And the UK in particular should be noted for its complicity and  deals with SOCAR [Azerbaijan's state oil company]. The UK has the  largest leverage over Azerbaijan, as a lot of the Aliyev family's  personal wealth is invested in the UK. On the US side of things, the  previous administration was terribly silent in the ethnic cleansing  that took place, so I think the new administration has a challenge  and an opportunity to kind of do much more," Vardanyan says.

In the absence of meaningful international pressure, it seems clear  that Azerbaijan will continue with the trials. Massimino says that  tangible steps should be taken by Western countries in response.

"Beyond talking about the issue, [Western countries] should start to  rethink their economic relations with this authoritarian regime,"  Massimino says. "The level of impunity Azerbaijan has enjoyed is  very, very high. So sanctions would be an option, maybe cutting some  economic ties, in order to force the regime to release these  prisoners, both the POWs and the former leaders," she says.

For David Vardanyan, all that's left is to hope - and to savour the  few minutes a week he gets to speak with his father.

"When we speak with Dad now, we're just trying to get as much  information as possible - about his health, about what's happened in  the courtroom," he says. "Azerbaijan has made the trial completely  inaccessible; they are now even threatening to disbar the lawyer we  found, with great difficulty, to represent him. They have refused all  his petitions to extend the trial, to get internet access, anything  that could let him prepare properly. They are getting away with  complete disregard of international law and even their own laws. All  we can do now is try to put this sham trial in the public eye as much  as possible."

On January 17, under the chairmanship of Judge Zeynal Agayev, the  Baku Military Court began considering the "indictment" against the  former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh. Among the accused are three  former presidents of Nagorno-Karabakh: Arkady Ghukasyan, Bako  Sahakyan and Arayik Harutyunyan. Also appearing before the court are  former Foreign Minister David Babayan, Parliament Speaker David  Ishkhanyan, former Defense Army Commander General Levon Mnatsakanyan,  General David Manukyan and former State Minister Ruben Vardanyan.