Your trusted source

Human rights lawyer Siranush Sahakyan reacted to Azerbaijan’s proposal for “collaboration” with Armenia in the criminal case involving Artsakh’s military and political leaders.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan “invited Armenia’s law enforcement agencies to cooperate in obtaining evidence and involving witnesses within the framework of the criminal case.”

Sahakyan stated that Azerbaijan expects Armenia to hand over those falsely accused of complicity in war and other crimes to the country. The lawyer emphasized that all international organizations and agreements have provisions prohibiting cooperation in cases of political persecution.

“At the moment there are political persecutions, people who are victims of persecutions. In this case, there is a clear basis for non-cooperation. Moreover, human rights standards prohibit the extradition of a person to a country where there is a threat of torture or other life-threatening crimes. No Armenian can be legally extradited to Azerbaijan by any country, including the Republic of Armenia, because all Armenians are killed and tortured in Azerbaijan,” she told Panorama.am in an interview on Wednesday.

According to the expert's assessment, the proposal for “cooperation” by Azerbaijan lacks any legal grounds and is completely politically motivated.

“On the other hand, such a proposal could be logical if Azerbaijan cooperated with Armenia in eliminating violations of the Armenian victims’ rights. Azerbaijan must be aware of more than a dozen court rulings confirming that Armenians were captured, killed, tortured and forcibly disappeared in Azerbaijan due to their nationality. The European Court ordered Azerbaijan to investigate, identify the perpetrators and bring them to account for the protection of the rights of the Armenian victims,” she underscored.