Azerbaijan’s Baku Military Court on Thursday issued life sentences against a group of Artsakh’s former elected and military leaders in what Armenians and human rights advocates have long described as a staged political proceeding designed to rubber-stamp Baku’s post-ethnic-cleansing narrative.
Former Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan, former Defense Army commander Levon Mnatsakanyan, Major General Davit Manukyan, former National Assembly Speaker Davit Ishkhanyan, and former Foreign Minister Davit Babayan were all sentenced to life imprisonment, according to Azerbaijan’s state-aligned APA reporting, as relayed by Armenian media.
Two other former Artsakh presidents—Arkady Ghukasyan and Bako Sahakyan—received 20-year sentences, with Azerbaijani outlets openly noting that their age placed them outside the country’s legal allowance for life imprisonment.
Another defendant, Madat Babayan, was sentenced to 19 years.
The verdict ends a process that has carried the markings of a predetermined show trial from the start: sweeping political charges, a captive dock, a courtroom designed for propaganda consumption, and a near-total information blackout imposed through exclusive state-media coverage that prevents any credible public scrutiny.
Baku has thrown a blizzard of accusations at the prisoners—dozens of articles ranging from war-planning to illegal resettlement and torture—while holding Ruben Vardanyan’s case separately, another track in the same coercive machinery that treats Armenian detainees as trophies and bargaining chips rather than defendants entitled to due process.
These sentences do not deliver justice. They codify Azerbaijan’s campaign to criminalize Artsakh’s very existence after the September 2023 assault that emptied the Armenian homeland of its people, then paraded its leaders into captivity. They aim to break political will, intimidate survivors, and replace law with spectacle.
Oragark condemns this sham proceeding and the life sentences issued by the Baku Military Court. These men are political prisoners, and their continued detention remains an ongoing crime that demands sustained international pressure, monitoring, and action.
