US Official News
February 14, 2015 Saturday

European MPs Demand Fair Trial for Men Jailed in Armenian-Occupied
Nagorno-Karabakh

New York

New York County Lawyers’ Association has issued the following news release:

Members of Parliament from 24 European nations have signed a motion
calling for two men jailed by an internationally unrecognised court in
Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh to be given a fair trial under
Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The two, Russian citizen Dilgam Asgarov and Azerbaijani citizen
Shahbaz Guliyev, were apprehended by the Armenian Army in the
Armenian-occupied Kalbajar region of Azerbaijan in June last year and
then convicted of murder by a “court of first instance of the
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic”.

The motion, before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe, was signed by 46 MPs and calls for their fair trial, given
they were convicted in a “Republic” that is an “unrecognised
separatist regime”, which is not a signatory to any international
treaties that “guarantee either human rights or the rule of law”.

The 46 signatories include MPs from Ireland, Spain, Italy, Finland,
Ukraine and Croatia.

The motion was tabled on February 5th by Azerbaijani PACE delegate
Elkhan Suleymanov, who said the two men could only be legally tried by
an Azerbaijani court, given the alleged offence took place in
internationally-recognised Azerbaijani territory. He said the
additional charge of illegally entering Nagorno-Karabakh is void for
the same reason.

Asgarov was sentenced to life imprisonment and Guliyev to 22 years. A
third man, Hasan Hasanov, was shot dead at the scene.

Suleymanov has questioned the actions of the Armenian Army who,
despite answering to Yerevan, chose to hand the men over to the
so-called “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic”, which has not been recognised
by any United Nations member state, including Armenia.

“This is a deliberate action, not a coincidence. The Armenian side
wants to insure itself from being involved in any international
responsibility by distancing itself from this issue,” he said.

Had the men been able to access the Azerbaijani legal system, there
would have been no “first instance” court and they would have had the
protection of the European Convention on Human Rights, which was
signed by Azerbaijan in 2001. At the time Baku warned that “it is
unable to guarantee the application of the provisions of the
Convention in the territories occupied by the Republic of Armenia
until these territories are liberated from that occupation.”

That occupation continues to this day, despite numerous resolutions
calling for Armenia’s immediate withdrawal by the United Nations,
European Parliament, the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) and other international bodies.