KARABAKH RULES OUT RELEASE OF JAILED AZERBAIJANI NATIONALS
Big News Network, Australia
Feb 19 2015
RFE Thursday 19th February, 2015
Authorities in Azerbaijan’s breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh have
refused to consider the release of two Azerbaijani nationals who were
convicted and jailed last year on charges of committing a number of
crimes, including murder.
Azerbaijan does not recognize the legality of the trial in which its
citizens, Dilham Askerov and Shahbaz Quliyev, were sentenced to life
and 22 years in prison, respectively.
Askerov, 54, and Quliyev, 46, are charged with murder, espionage,
illegal border crossing, and illegal weapons possession.
Authorities in the self-proclaimed government of Nagorno-Karabakh
say they crossed into the breakaway region on July 12 and killed an
officer of its military.
Azerbaijani officials say the self-proclaimed government, which is
not recognized by any nation, has no legal right to try the men.
Baku and Yerevan have been locked in a conflict over Azerbaijan’s
breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh for years.
Armenian-backed separatists seized the mainly Armenian-populated
region from Azerbaijan during a war in the early 1990s that killed
some 30,000 people and displaced many more.
Diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict have brought little progress.