Ex-Karabakh Official Held by Azerbaijan Claims Torture and Delayed Trial, Reports Reuters

TBILISI (Reuters) – Lawyers representing Ruben Vardanyan, a former high-ranking official in the ethnic Armenian administration of Nagorno-Karabakh who is currently detained in Azerbaijan, filed legal actions in Baku on Thursday. The lawsuits allege that Vardanyan has been tortured and has not been granted the right to a speedy trial.

Azerbaijani officials have not commented on the allegations.

Vardanyan was taken into custody along with several other senior Karabakh officials after a rapid military offensive by Azerbaijani forces in September 2023 aimed at reclaiming Nagorno-Karabakh, an area that had been under the control of its ethnic Armenian population since the early 1990s.

In their statement, Vardanyan’s legal team noted that one lawsuit pertains to the treatment that constituted torture during a hunger strike he initiated in April 2024. They reported that, as a consequence of the hunger strike, Vardanyan was placed in a punishment cell, forced to stand, denied the opportunity to bathe, and deprived of water for two days.

Another legal action claims that Vardanyan’s right to a speedy trial has been violated due to his prolonged detention. Additionally, there is a separate lawsuit accusing a Russian-language Azerbaijani newspaper of defamation against him.

As Baku prepares to host the COP29 climate change conference in November, the event is expected to bring heightened scrutiny of its human rights practices, particularly regarding the imprisonment of journalists and activists—a concern raised by both the United States and the European Union.

Azerbaijan’s military success in Karabakh last year effectively ended a separatist conflict that began prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians have reportedly fled to Armenia, while many ethnic Azeris, who had previously vacated their homes in and around Karabakh, have begun to return.

In their statement, Vardanyan’s lawyers called on Azerbaijan to release all Armenian prisoners from Karabakh who are currently held in the country before the conference commences.

Vardanyan, a billionaire banker born in Armenia who made his fortune in Russia, relocated to Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022 and was quickly appointed to the second-highest position in the region’s self-declared government. He resigned from his governmental role in February 2023 amid a ten-month blockade of the territory by Azerbaijan.