YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — One of the Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan has reportedly been hospitalized on December 23 after what authorities in Baku described as a sharp deterioration of his health.
The 70-year-old Vagif Khachatryan is a former resident of Nagorno-Karabakh who was arrested by Azerbaijani security services in July 2023 as he was escorted by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to Armenian hospitals for urgent treatment.
He was subsequently tried and sentenced by an Azerbaijani military court to 15 years in prison for allegedly killing and deporting Karabakh’s ethnic Azerbaijani residents during the 1991-1994 Armenian-Azerbaijani war. Khachatryan, who refused to be represented by an Azerbaijani government-appointed lawyer during the trial, denied the accusations.
Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Justice said that Khachatryan was taken to the hospital on December 22 after complaining of pain in the heart and undergoing “intensive resuscitation” therapy in an Azerbaijani prison. He remains in intensive care there, the ministry said in a statement cited by Azerbaijani state media. It described his condition as “serious.”
The Karabakh Armenian man’s reported hospitalization came three days after he was again allowed to talk to members of his family in Armenia by phone.
Khachatryan is one of at least 23 Armenian prisoners still held in Azerbaijan. They include eight former leaders of Karabakh who are standing trial on grave accusations denied by them.
