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The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) refused to consider the application of saboteurs Dilham Askerov and Shahbaz Guliyev imprisoned in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Chingiz Askerov, Plenipotentiary of Azerbaijan to the European Court and the head of the sector on protection of human rights of the Department for Coordination of Law Enforcement Agencies of Azerbaijan’s presidential administration, told the Azerbaijani information agency Trend.

According to the information, the families of Dilham Askerov and Shahbaz Guliyev applied to the European Court in 2014. Reportedly, the application contains information about an alleged violence of Article 11 of the Additional Protocol to the European Convention, and there are proofs and references to facts, which create a precedent for applying to the European Court. However, the Court refused to consider the given application as a precedent.

According to Chingiz Askerov, the government of Azerbaijan has applied to the European Court regarding this issue, but has not received an answer yet.

Besides, according to Vesti.az, Askerov also said that all the cases brought against Armenia by the Azerbaijani side in ECHR are still ineffective. At the same time, he accused the European Court of being “biased.”

According to the police of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), on June 29, 2014, Azerbaijani citizens Shahbaz Guliyev (born in 1968), Dilham Askerov (born in 1960), as well as the liquidated third participant of the group Hasan Hasanov, armed with weapons and ammunition, illegally crossed the state border of the NKR and entered the territory of Shahumyan Region of the republic in order to carry out an intelligence assessment. The aforementioned people gathered information and carried out espionage due to special task. Moreover, on July 4, 2014, with use of weapons, they kidnapped the under-age citizen of NKR Smbat Tsakanyan, whose body was discovered with gunshot wounds on July 15 in the forest line of communities Karvachar and Manashid of the Shahumyan Region. Besides, in the evening of July 11, on the ground of national hatred, Hasanov killed Sargis Abrahamyan, a Yerevan citizen (born in 1971), with a firearm, and wounded Karine Davtyan, a resident of Dzoraghbyur of Kotayk Province of the RA, on the 32nd kilometer of Vardenis-Karvachar road. He showed an armed resistance during the operation on his detention and was neutralized. Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilham Askerov were arrested. The court proceedings began on October 27, 2014.

On December 29, 2014, the First Instance Court of General Jurisdiction of the NKR announced verdict for the saboteurs. Shahbaz Guliyev was found guilty of espionage (Art. 316), of crossing the state border of the NKR with a group and without a due permission (Art. 350, p. 2), of bearing firearms and military products by an organized group (Art. 245, p. 3), of group kidnapping of an under-age person using arms (Art. 139, p. 1), and was condemned to 22 years of imprisonment. Dilham Askerov, apart from the aforementioned accusations, was also found guilty of a murder by kidnapping a person by an organized group, with the motive of national hatred (Art. 103, p.2,p. 3,7,14) and condemned to life imprisonment.