Azerbaijan trying Russian citizen "who fought for Karabakh"

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Baku Grave Crimes Court on Wednesday, June 23 began a trial against Russian citizen Eduard Dubakov who, according to the Azerbaijani side, fought in Nagorno-Karabakh on the side of Armenia.

Dubakov was charged with terrorism, financing of terrorism, participation in criminal activity, as well as illegal crossing of the state borders of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan is also prosecuting more than a dozen Armenian prisoners of war in a gross violation of the international humanitarian law and the November 9 trilateral statement. A court in Baku earlier handed a 20-year jail term to Viken Euljekjian, another Armenian captive, and a citizen of Lebanon, illegally detained in Azerbaijan. He was charged with "mercenary activity", "terrorism", "illegal border crossing." Euljekjian, however, did not plead guilty on Monday, June 14, revealing that he had testified under pressure.

Azerbaijan is refusing to return all Armenian prisoners of war, in violation of the statement on the cessation of hostilities signed by the parties in November 2020. The Armenian side has information about some 200 Armenians still in Azerbaijan’s captivity, but Azeri President Ilham Aliyev claims that persons being kept in Baku are not PoWs, but “terrorists and saboteurs”. At least 19 of the hundreds of Armenian captives have been tortured and killed, according to their lawyers.