True organizers of Armenian massacres in Sumgait, Azerbaijani  leadership, remained unpunished - Geghard foundation 

ArmInfo. Below is an article by the Geghard scientific and analytical foundation on the 37th  anniversary of the Sumgait pogroms

Between February 27 and 29, 1988, in the city of Sumgait, located 26  km from Baku and home to approximately 250,000 residents, including  around 18,000 Armenians, massacres were carried out against the  Armenian population. However, it remains unclear to this day who from  the Azerbaijani side planned and organized the massacre of Armenians,  why the pogrom was not prevented, and why the USSR leadership and law  enforcement agencies failed to prevent it, did not properly condemn  the crime, and did not provide an appropriate political and legal  assessment..

There are numerous eyewitness testimonies, reports of international  organizations, official documents, materials from court cases, and  verdicts regarding the massacre of Armenians.

In response to the legitimate demand of the people of  Nagorno-Karabakh to reunite with Soviet Armenia, the Azerbaijani side  started threatening them with physical violence. In February 14,  1988, when the first rally was held in Stepanakert, Asadov, the head  of the Azerbaijani Communist Party's Central Committee department,  stated that "one hundred thousand Azerbaijanis are ready to invade  Nagorno-Karabakh at any moment and begin a carnage."

There were false rumors spread in Sumgait before and throughout the  pogroms about national-based persecution and atrocities committed  against Azerbaijanis in the city of Kapan in the Armenian SSR and in  Nagorno-Karabakh.

In the 1990s, the so-called "Bunyatov version' gained popularity in  Azerbaijani public consciousness. This narrative held Armenian  nationalists responsible for the Sumgait massacres, claiming that  they had orchestrated the events to discredit Azerbaijanis. This  thesis is repeated by M. Ismayilov, a corresponding member of the  Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijani SSR and deputy director of the  Institute of History.  In his book, he states: ":The organization of  the Sumgait events were organized by Armenian extremists, aimed at  tarnishing the Azerbaijani people and facilitating the secession of  the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region:"

Recently, the "Bunyatov version" has been regarded as a "notable  example of a conspiracy theory."

By 1990, another Azerbaijani narrative emerged, based on Davud  Imanov's film Sumgait's Echo, which accused Armenians, Russians, and  Americans of organizing the massacres, allegedly as a means to  "destroy the Soviet Union."

The only so-called "factual" basis for the illogical claim that  Armenians organized their own massacres in Sumgait was the  involvement in the crimes of a person named Eduard Grigoryan. Valery  Kiporenko, a senior investigator from the Special Department of the  Kiev Military District, among the investigators of the USSR KGB also  participated in the investigation in the Azerbaijani SSR.

According to Kiporenko's testimony, "about one or two weeks before  the mass riots, several buses with refugees arrived in Sumgait: In  reality, these were people who had low income in Yerevan and, taking  advantage of the deteriorating situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, decided  to come to their homeland and obtain housing, contrary to the  Armenians. We had information from the USSR KGB, which confirmed that  no cases of rape or expulsion from Yerevan had occurred. It was  purely a propaganda campaign."

As the head of the investigative team, Kiporenko also stated: "I  personally interrogated Grigoryan and brought charges against him. He  had an Armenian surname, but he was officially listed as Azerbaijani  by nationality. The reality is this: he was born into an incapable  family, his mother was Azerbaijani, and his father abandoned them in  his childhood and disappeared. As a result, he had an extremely  negative attitude toward Armenians. He held certain beliefs, and  although he had an Armenian surname, he was deeply hostile towards  Armenian people."

From the investigator's testimony, it can be concluded that Eduard  Grigoryan's Armenian surname was exploited by Azerbaijani authorities  to later put the responsibility for the Sumgait massacres on  Armenians.

A total of 84 people were arrested after the Sumgait massacres (82  Azerbaijanis, 1 Armenian, and 1 Russian). The investigation,  initiated and conducted by the Kremlin in February 1988 and later,  confirmed that there had been no persecution of Azerbaijanis in Kapan  in 1987-1988. On February 26, at Sumgait's central square,  Azerbaijani Prime Minister Seidov delivered a speech with slogans  such as "Expel Armenians from Sumgait!", "Death to Armenians!", and  "Armenians are the enemies of our faith and obstacles to  progress-massacre them!"

On February 27, the massacre of Armenians in Sumgait began. The mob,  incited by the city authorities, murdered Armenians in their homes,  tortured them to death in the streets and squares, and burned them  alive. Lists of Armenian residences had been prepared in advance, and  telephone lines were disconnected.

From February 26 to 29, the city's militia did not intervene, while  the roads and railways remained under the control of armed gangs.  Witnesses later recounted numerous cases where Armenian children,  elderly individuals, women, and men were brutally murdered, after  which their bodies were doused with gasoline and set on fire. Groups  attacked lone girls, women, and even pregnant women, subjecting them  to rape and horrific torture.

According to numerous witnesses, Soviet Army soldiers watched the  massacre in Sumgait with indifference. When asked why they did not  intervene or stop the killings, their commanders merely shrugged and  said, "There are no orders." The Soviet Army units "arrived late"  just long enough for the acts of vandalism and atrocities against  Armenians to be completed. To divert attention from Sumgait,  massacres of Armenians were simultaneously organized in Agdam,  Shamkir, and other settlements where Armenians lived.

Only after three days of massacres, on the night of February 29, did  Soviet troops, led by Krayev, enter Sumgait. However, they were not  authorized to use live ammunition. With great difficulty, they  managed to stop the atrocities and evacuate the surviving Armenians  from the city.

According to official data, 32 people were tortured to death in  Sumgait, more than 200 (400 according to other sources) were tortured  and seriously injured. Around 200 apartments were attacked and  looted, more than 50 cultural and public buildings were destroyed,  and over 100 vehicles were damaged. However, these figures do not  reflect the actual scale of the massacre. Other well-documented  evidence suggests that more than 110 Armenians were killed in Sumgait  over the course of three days. The majority were burned alive after  being subjected to brutal torture.

€ political assessment did not follow to the events in Sumgait.  Separate trials were held in several cities of the USSR. A total of  94 perpetrators were held accountable, with only one sentenced to  death. However, the true organizers of the massacres-the Azerbaijani  leadership-remained unpunished. The leadership of the USSR classified  the Sumgait massacres as "hooligan acts" and condemned them  ambiguously. This led to the continuation of pogroms against  Armenians in other Azerbaijani cities, particularly in Kirovabad  (Gandzak) in November 1988 and in Baku in January 1990.

Thus, based on the provisions of Article 2 of the UN Convention on  the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (adopted on  December 9, 1948) and historical data, the crimes committed in  Sumgait in February 1988 correspond to the crime of genocide.  Unfortunately, the atrocities and methods of Azerbaijani barbarism  have remained the same over the years. The brutal acts committed  against Armenians in Sumgait, Kirovabad, and Baku-beheadings,  mutilations, burning of bodies, rape, dismemberment-were repeated in  the same manner by Azerbaijani-Turkish special forces units, such as  Yashma and Commando, during the Four-Day War in 2016, the 44-Day War  in Artsakh in 2020, the September 2022 aggression against the  sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia, and the complete  depopulation of Artsakh in September 2023.