Aliyev’s Show Trials Echo Stalin’s Tactics in Suppressing Opposition: Luis Moreno Ocampo

By Luis Moreno Ocampo

First prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) from 2003 to 2012

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has resurrected one of Joseph Stalin’s most sinister tools: the show trial. Just as Stalin’s purges in the 1930s relied on forced confessions and sham trials to kill his rivals and strengthen his totalitarian grip on power, Aliyev is using judicial theatre to mask his crimes.

Stalin’s infamous show trials targeted his closest allies—old Bolsheviks, military generals, and secret police operatives. These spectacles culminated in executions, while the media of the time failed to see through the facade. Notably, The New York Times correspondent Harold Denny dismissed the trials as genuine efforts at justice, tragically endorsing Stalin’s propaganda. History cannot afford to repeat such errors. Can we do it better in 2025?

On January 17, Azerbaijan will stage criminal trials against Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, including former presidents and civilians, alongside a separate trial for former State Minister Ruben Vardanyan. These proceedings are predetermined; the accused are already convicted in all but name. The charges, as hollow as they are grotesque, serve as a cover-up of the crimes committed by the regime in Azerbaijan against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh including the prisoners.

Since December 2022, more than 120,000 Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh were systematically starved under Azerbaijan’s blockade. In September 2023, they were subjected to a brutal military assault, instilling conditions to destroy the ethnic group as such and produce serious mental harm – two material forms of committing genocide under Article 2 (c) and (b) of the Genocide Convention. Azerbaijan’s Parliament has made its intentions clear, advocating for the erasure of Armenian as a nation and claiming its territory as “Western Azerbaijan.”

If Aliyev had genocidal intentions, then the Nagorno-Karabakh “ethnic cleansing” should be considered a genocide, if not, it is a crime against humanity of persecution, force-displacement, and deportation.

Hundreds of Azerbaijani dissidents remain imprisoned under Aliyev’s regime, stripped of any prospect of a fair trial. On January 6, 2025, a criminal trial against a French national, Martin Ryan, started in Azerbaijan, exposing the tensions between both countries. Ryan stands accused of espionage—allegedly gathering intelligence on Azerbaijan’s military collaborations with Turkey and Pakistan and recruiting French-speaking Azerbaijanis for French intelligence. Prosecutors claim he also acted as an intermediary, facilitating contact between French intelligence and Azad Mammadli, an Azerbaijani citizen now on trial for high treason. The charges against dissidents or French citizens, dubious at best, could be characterized as a systemic attack against the civilian population, and consequently, as crimes against humanity.

This is not an isolated incident. Independent reports from the European Court of Human Rights, the US State Department, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House all agree -Azerbaijan lacks an independent judiciary. In a rare instance of judicial independence in 2021, Judge Mehriban Suleymanova ruled against a government-backed entity. Her punishment was swift—she was fired.

The international community must act. These Stalin-era show trials in modern Azerbaijan are not merely a domestic charade but a calculated attempt to distract from Aliyev’s crimes and tighten his grip on power. Every judge’s strike of gavel in Baku’s courts resounds with injustice, and every conviction shames the global community that allows this to continue.

It is time to expose Aliyev’s dictatorship for what it is and shame its allies.

Speak up for all those unlawfully detained, and make their voices heard. Demand their unconditional release.

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