Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
October 28, 2008 Tuesday

CIRCUMSTANCES OF AZERI POWS CAPTURE STILL UNCLEAR

An Azerbaijani soldier taken captive by Armenian armed forces on
October 8 near Azerbaijans Gazakh district was unconscious during his
meeting with representatives of the International Committee of the Red
Cross, the POWs family said. The ICRC informed the parents of 19-year
old Rafig Hasanov about this.

His mother, Rubaba Hasanova, said the ICRC employees first met with
her son a day after the capture. When they were registering the
captives in their list, they couldnt talk to Rafig, as he was
unconscious. On October 16, they called on him again. Then, my son
dictated a letter to them, and they wrote down what he said, Hasanova
said. The POWs family members also wrote a letter to the serviceman
and passed it over to the employees of the ICRCs Barda office. Rahman
Hasanov, the captives father, said his son was being mistreated by
other soldiers and sergeants during military service, and that he had
complained about this to the Gazakh military prosecutor. The
servicemen questioned at the prosecutors office in this regard
confirmed this, he said. As for the circumstances of his sons capture,
Hasanov said he had not been provided with any information to that end
either at the prosecutors office or the military unit where he was
serving. In the morning on October 8, a brawl flared up between Rafig
and the soldiers that were purportedly mistreating him. I went to the
military unit, and even to the checkpoint. One of the servicemen told
me there that my son had disappeared at around nine oclock, then he
heard three bullet shots, but he did not say where the sound came
from, Hasanov said.