Ruben Vardanyan’s American Lawyer Says Azerbaijan Denying Him Entry

A U.S. human rights lawyer representing Ruben Vardanyan has criticized the Azerbaijani authorities for not allowing him to visit Azerbaijan to see the Armenian billionaire and former Nagorno-Karabakh premier jailed there.

The lawyer, Jared Genser, said the ban undermines the credibility of Baku’s denial of Vardanyan’s ill-treatment in custody.

Vardanyan, who held the second-highest post in Karabakh’s leadership from November 2022 to February 2023, was arrested at an Azerbaijani checkpoint in the Lachin corridor as he fled the region along with tens of thousands of its ordinary residents. He was charged with “financing terrorism,” illegally entering Karabakh and supplying its armed forces with military equipment. He denies the accusations.

The tycoon was reportedly put in a punishment cell in an Azerbaijani prison last April after he went on hunger strike to demand the immediate release of himself and seven other Karabakh Armenian leaders also jailed by Baku. He agreed to end the protest after being allowed to talk to his wife, Veronika Zonabend, by phone three weeks later.

In a subsequent appeal sent to the UN Committee against Torture, Vardanyan’s family and Genser said he was denied water, forced to stand for many hours and subjected to sleep deprivation. Baku has denied the claims. It has barred Genser from visiting Azerbaijan and talking to his client.

“The only proof we can have is by what Ruben says,” Genser told RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service in an interview. “If Vardanyan was not tortured, then they have nothing to deny or hide. However, they are shamelessly spreading false information on behalf of the [International] Committee [of the Red Cross.]”

“I would be happy if you asked the Azerbaijani government why lawyer Jared Genser is not allowed to visit Azerbaijan and personally meet with Ruben Vardanyan,” he said.

The Armenian government maintains that it has been trying hard to have Vardanyan and at least 22 other Armenians remaining in Azerbaijani captivity freed. Its domestic critics dismiss these assurances. They say that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan actually helped Baku legitimize Vardanyan’s continuing imprisonment with his scathing comments about the tycoon.

Speaking at an August 31 news conference in Yerevan, Pashinyan wondered who had told Vardanyan to renounce Russian citizenship and move to Karabakh in 2022 and “for what purpose.” He seemed to echo Azerbaijani leaders’ earlier claims that Vardanyan was dispatched to Karabakh by Moscow to serve Russian interests there.