Ruben Vardanyan gets ‘special’ negative attitude by Azeri authorities, says former Ombudsman of NK

The former State Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh Ruben Vardanyan, currently wrongfully detained in Azerbaijan on fabricated charges, is getting negative special treatment by Azeri authorities, a former Karabakh official has said.

“As far as I understand the number of prisoners of war held in Baku is 16, who haven’t been convicted yet, and criminal proceedings are underway,” Artak Beglaryan, the former Human Rights Defender of Nagorno-Karabakh, said at a press conference.

Asked about the potential fate of Vardanyan, Beglaryan said the former state minister is being targeted in a special way by the Azeri authorities.

“Since there’s been a special statement in terms of Ruben Vardanyan, and by various international organizations, and there is attention by the Azerbaijani authorities, it seems like from this perspective the Azerbaijani authorities have been displaying a ‘special’ negative attitude towards Ruben Vardanyan. Of course, such an attitude exists towards all political leaders, but it is most emphasized in case of Vardanyan, given that his lawyers and family have been fighting more publicly and aggressively against those criminal cases,” Beglaryan said.

Beglaryan said all criminal cases initiated by the Azerbaijani authorities against the former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh are fabricated. The charges include terrorism, terror funding and others.

“You can’t anyhow fit the fight of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh into terrorism, because from a military perspective we were conducting self-defense, while the rest was entirely a political struggle, whose leaders were the former officials who are now in the prisons of Baku,” Beglaryan said.

Ruben Vardanyan’s legal team had earlier released a statement, saying that in an unprecedented escalation of its ongoing crackdown on dissent, Azerbaijani prosecutors have unveiled a new and enormous array of some 45 potential charges against unlawfully detained Vardanyan. If convicted, Vardanyan faces the grim prospect of life imprisonment