BAKU (Reuters) -An Azerbaijan court on Thursday extended by four months the pre-trial detention of several former officials of the breakaway ethnic Armenian authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh charged with terrorism, illegal border crossing and other crimes, the general procurator said.
Azerbaijan in September retook Karabakh, which had been effectively independent with Armenian backing since a bitter war in the early 1990s, prompting a mass exodus of the ethnic Armenians living there. Azerbaijani forces arrested several of the territory’s most senior former officials amid the exodus.
At the time, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said his “iron fist” had consigned the idea of an independent Armenian Karabakh to history forever.
The detainees include three former presidents of the breakaway region, a general in its army, the speaker of its parliament and its foreign minister.
Among them is Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian-born banker who made billions in Russia. He was appointed head of the breakaway Karabakh government in late 2022, before his dismissal four months later.
Vardanyan remained inside Karabakh after leaving government and was arrested by Azerbaijan forces while attempting to leave Karabakh alongside 120,000 ethnic Armenians.
Vardanyan’s family, who describe him as a “humanitarian (who) has never been involved in any military activities”, say he is being illegally held in Azerbaijan and have called for his release.
(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova; Writing by Felix Light; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Hugh Lawson)
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