11:05,
YEREVAN, JUNE 28, ARMENPRESS. The Office of the Representative of Armenia before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has made a statement over the ongoing illegal criminal prosecutions of Armenian prisoners of war in Azerbaijan.
The statement says:
“According to the information gained on the sidelines of the inter-state legal processes initiated by the Armenian government in the European Court of Human Rights and collected from open public sources, currently the Azerbaijani authorities are conducting fake criminal prosecutions against Armenian citizens who have been captured during the 2020 September 27 war and are still being held in Azerbaijan with obvious gross violations of international humanitarian law.
The Armenian government has repeatedly officially announced and reaffirms now as well its position that persons, currently illegally held in Azerbaijan, are considered prisoners of war and hostage-taken civilians and use the protection guarantees in accordance with the 1949 Geneva Convention. Any criminal case against captured Armenians has no legal ground and openly contradicts the international legal norms”, the statement says.
The Office stated that it has repeatedly applied to the ECHR requesting to stop the ongoing criminal prosecutions against the Armenian captives, release them and guarantee their rights. However, the only urgent measure within the ECHR is the opportunity of applying an interim measure, which, unfortunately, has a limited nature, and the Court cannot intervene in the ongoing criminal prosecutions against these persons.
The Office said it is ready to cooperate with lawyers, attorneys and any other persons interested in the matter.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan