Armenian POWs in a Baku court during their sham trial
After staging a sham trial of Armenian prisoners of war being illegally held captive, an Azerbaijani court of Friday sentenced 14 Armenian captives to jail.
The trial, being held in Baku’s major crimes court, concluded with two POWs, Gegham Serbian and Hrach Avagyan being sentenced to four year in prison, while the other 12 captives, who were charged with allegedly illegally crossing the Azerbaijani border, were given six-month sentences each.
Initially the Armenian captives were charged with terrorism and sabotage, bearing arms and illegally crossing the border and other trumped up allegations.
Azerbaijan has been holding several trials attempting to bring a legal facade to its illegal imprisonment of Armenians.
Per the November 9 agreement, all prisoners of war should have been released. Armenia, for its part, has released all prisoners of war, including two Azerbaijanis who were arrested in 2014 and were serving sentences in Artsakh.
In video footage that surfaced last month, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev is heard telling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he was keeping Armenian POWs captive as political leverage.
