The legal team representing Ruben Vardanyan has filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights challenging the 20-year prison sentence imposed on the former Artsakh state minister by an Azerbaijani court.
Yerevan-based attorney Siranush Sahakian said the case alleges violations of eight provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights by Azerbaijan’s judicial and law-enforcement authorities.
According to Sahakian, the Azerbaijani court’s verdict failed to establish Vardanyan’s personal guilt through credible facts or evidence. She argued that Vardanyan had no meaningful opportunity to defend himself within a judicial system that denied him the basic guarantees of a fair trial.
Vardanyan served as Artsakh’s state minister from November 2022 until February 2023. Azerbaijani authorities arrested him at a checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor in September 2023, as Artsakh’s Armenian population was fleeing the region following Azerbaijan’s military assault.
Seven other former Artsakh political and military leaders were also detained during the forced exodus. Five were later sentenced to life imprisonment, while Vardanyan and two others received 20-year sentences following trials widely condemned by international human rights advocates. All of the defendants rejected the charges against them.
Vardanyan declined to appeal through Azerbaijan’s domestic courts, saying that doing so would lend legitimacy to what he described as a politically motivated and unlawful prosecution. His attorneys instead pursued the case before the Strasbourg-based European court after Azerbaijani authorities finally provided them with the complete text of the verdict.
Sahakian said the full verdicts involving the seven other imprisoned Artsakh leaders have still not been made available to their legal representatives.
Armenian officials have repeatedly claimed that they are working to secure the prisoners’ release, but those assurances have faced growing criticism from the detainees, their families and opposition figures.
Vardanyan has accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government of indifference toward the Armenian prisoners held in Baku. Former Artsakh National Assembly Speaker Davit Ishkhanyan, who is also imprisoned in Azerbaijan, has gone further, alleging that the Armenian authorities do not want the detained leaders to be released.
The appeal places renewed international attention on Azerbaijan’s prosecution of the former Artsakh leadership and the continued detention of Armenian prisoners following the forced displacement of Artsakh’s Armenian population
