16:28, 7 November 2023
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 7, ARMENPRESS. A Baku court has sentenced Vagif Khachatryan, the elderly ethnic Armenian man from Nagorno-Karabakh who was kidnapped by Azeri border guards during his ICRC-mediated medical evacuation on July 29, to 15 years in prison on fabricated war crime charges.
The Armenian foreign ministry earlier said that the arrest of the Red Cross-protected patient from Nagorno-Karabakh amounts to war crime.
Prominent lawyer Siranush Sahakyan said that the kidnapping constitutes extraordinary rendition in terms of international law and a due process is therefore ruled out.
The kidnapped man’s daughter, in a plea to the UN to ensure the safe release of her 65-year-old father, said that all charges pressed by the Azeri prosecution are fabricated and her father is innocent.