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Azerbaijani Court Sentences Ruben Vardanyan to 20 Years for War Crimes
Vardanyan was convicted on 42 charges including terrorism and war crimes; prosecutors sought life but he received 20 years in a trial criticized by international observers.
- An Azerbaijani court in Baku sentenced Ruben Vardanyan to 20 years in prison on Tuesday after convicting him on 19 charges including war crimes and terrorism.
- Azerbaijani authorities portrayed him and other ex-separatist officials as leaders of an illegal armed entity, and prosecutors had sought a life sentence, while international legal counsel said the trial was not free or fair.
- During the mass exodus, he was arrested in September 2023 while attempting to cross into Armenia as Azerbaijan seized Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting roughly 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee.
- The verdict comes as Armenia and Azerbaijan take steps toward peace after decades of conflict and follows sentences for 15 other former leaders handed down earlier this month.
- Vardanyan, a wealthy ex-banker who renounced Russian citizenship in 2022 and whose family fortune Forbes estimates at $1.2 billion, denies the charges and protests through hunger strikes and dismissal of lawyer.
29 Articles
29 Articles
Azerbaijan: Ruben Vardanyan’s 20-year prison term culminates "travesty” of a trial against ethnic Armenian leaders
Responding to the conviction and 20-year sentence of Ruben Vardanyan, the last of 16 ethnic Armenians put on trial by Azerbaijan in connection with their roles in Azerbaijan’s break-away region of Nagorno-Karabakh (Karabakh) prior to its takeover by Azerbaijani forces in 2023, Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said: “The conviction of the 16 defendants, culminating in this sentence against Rub…
An Azerbaijani military court has sentenced Ruben Vardanyan, the former state minister of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, to 20 years in prison, state media reported on Tuesday.
Azerbaijan sentences Ex-Nagorno-Karabakh leader to 20 years in prison
Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian born billionaire banker who served as a senior official in the breakaway Armenian administration of Nagorno-Karabakh, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by an Azerbaijani court on Tuesday, state media reported.
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