Ruben Vardanyan, the state minister of Nagorno-Karabakh, leads a cabinet meeting in Stepanakert, January 3, 2023

Ruben Vardanyan Insists on Innocence on Eve of Trial in Azerbaijan

251
0

BAKU (Azatutyun.am) — One day before the start of his trial in Baku, Armenian billionaire and former Nagorno-Karabakh premier Ruben Vardanyan on Thursday, January 16, rejected criminal charges brought against him as politically motivated and accused Azerbaijani investigators of attributing false testimony to him.

“I officially declare: I have given no testimony since the day of my arrest, except during the first interrogation, where I only stated my name and surname,” Vardanyan said in a statement which his family in Armenia said was conveyed to it during his weekly phone call. “All protocols bearing my signature are falsifications. These documents do not exist in reality. My lawyer and interpreter were coerced into signing these documents.”

“I once again reiterate and state my complete innocence and the innocence of my Armenian compatriots also being held as political prisoners and demand an immediate end to this politically motivated case against us,” he said.

Vardanyan, who held the second-highest post in Karabakh’s leadership from November 2022 to February 2023, was arrested at an Azerbaijani checkpoint in the Lachin corridor in September 2023 as he fled the region along with tens of thousands of its ordinary residents displaced by an Azerbaijani offensive. He was initially charged with “financing terrorism,” illegally entering Karabakh and supplying its armed forces with military equipment.

Vardanyan said in his statement that he is now facing as many as 42 charges, some of which carry [the penalty of] life imprisonment.

“I have not been granted the opportunity to fully review the official indictment,” he said. “My lawyer and I were merely allowed to skim through 422 volumes of the case files, all written solely in the Azerbaijani language, which I do not understand, within a very short timeframe – from December 9, 2024, to January 8, 2025. I only received the list of charges in Russian on January 8, 2025.”

Get the Mirror in your inbox:

According to the Reuters news agency, Azerbaijani prosecutors insisted that Vardanyan’s “rights to legal defense, the use of his preferred language, and other procedural rights were ensured” during the pre-trial investigation.

The defense lawyer mentioned in Vardanyan’s statement is apparently not American attorney Jared Genser, who was not allowed last year to visit Azerbaijan and talk to his prominent client. Genser last month accused Baku of planning to hold a “secret trial before a tribunal that will be neither independent nor impartial.”

As of Thursday evening, it was still not clear whether Vardanyan will stand trial together with seven other Karabakh Armenian leaders who were also captured by Baku shortly after the September 2023 offensive. Azerbaijani pro-government media reported earlier this month that 15 Armenian defendants will appear before an Azerbaijani military court on January 17.

However, Vardanyan denounced in his statement the Azerbaijani authorities for “separating my case into a separate proceeding.” He demanded that they “consolidate my case with the cases of the others accused” and make their trial public.

The Armenian government maintains that it has been trying hard to have Vardanyan and at least 22 other Armenians remaining in Azerbaijani captivity freed. Its domestic critics dismiss these assurances. They say that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan actually helped Baku legitimize Vardanyan’s continuing imprisonment with his scathing comments about the tycoon.

Speaking during a news conference last August, Pashinyan wondered who had told Vardanyan to renounce Russian citizenship and move to Karabakh in 2022 and “for what purpose.” He seemed to echo Azerbaijani leaders’ earlier claims that Vardanyan was dispatched to Karabakh by Moscow to serve Russian interests there. Vardanyan hit back at Pashinyan in a September statement issued via his family.

Get the Mirror-Spectator Weekly in your inbox: