Four Armenians released, but Azerbaijan’s illegal detentions continue
WASHINGTON, D.C. / YEREVAN — The Armenian Legal Center for Justice & Human Rights (ALC) welcomes the safe return to Armenia of Vagif Khachatryan, Vigen Euljekjian, Gevorg Sujyan and Davit Davtyan, who were transferred today from Azerbaijani custody after enduring years of illegal, politically motivated and inhumane detention. Their release brings relief to their families and communities — but it does not deliver justice, nor does it cure ongoing violations by Azerbaijan.
These men were unlawfully held in Baku’s prisons under conditions that violated the most basic guarantees of international humanitarian and human-rights law. Their return cannot obscure the central truth: Azerbaijan engaged in prolonged hostage-taking and coercive detention, and today’s transfer does not undo that crime, nor does it resolve the grave violations that remain ongoing.
“These Armenians should never have been detained — and selective releases are no substitute for justice,” said Ken Hachikian, chairperson of the Armenian Legal Center. “Despite clear obligations affirmed by the European Parliament, the U.S. Congress and the Nov. 9, 2020 agreement, Azerbaijan continues to hold Armenians as leverage. The demand is simple: free everyone still unlawfully detained, disclose the fate of the missing and stop using human beings as bargaining chips.”
Critically, today’s transfer occurred in parallel with Armenia’s handover of two Syrian nationals serving life sentences to Syrian authorities via Türkiye. This sequencing makes clear that today’s development was a prisoner exchange, not an unconditional humanitarian act. Any attempt to portray Azerbaijan’s actions as “confidence-building” is a distortion of reality and an affront to international law.
At least 19 Armenians remain unlawfully imprisoned in Baku
ALC remains deeply alarmed by credible and well-documented reports of torture, cruel and degrading treatment and fundamentally unfair proceedings imposed on Armenian detainees in Azerbaijani custody. Human Rights Watch and other international observers have documented abuse of Armenian POWs, while fair-trial monitors have raised serious concerns regarding opaque proceedings, political interference, coerced confessions and predetermined outcomes: hallmarks of show trials, not justice.
Today’s development is not closure. With the release of these four Armenians, at least 19 others remain unlawfully imprisoned in Baku, including leaders of the former Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). Their continued captivity is not a bargaining chip or a diplomatic footnote; it is an ongoing human-rights and humanitarian-law crisis demanding urgent international action.
ALC’s demands
The Armenian Legal Center calls for immediate, coordinated international action to secure:
1) The immediate and unconditional release of all remaining Armenian detainees held in Azerbaijan, without exchanges, political concessions or delay.
2) Truth and accountability for the forcibly disappeared and missing, including full disclosure of detention records and locations, and — where applicable — the return of remains. International humanitarian law imposes an affirmative duty to account for missing persons and recognizes families’ fundamental right to know the fate of their loved ones.
3) No repetition of the “Safarov precedent.” The two Syrian nationals transferred today were convicted in Armenian courts for mercenarism and related war crimes and were serving life sentences. Their transfer must not result in pardon, impunity or glorification — outcomes that would echo the Safarov case, where a convicted murderer was celebrated, rather than held accountable. Any such result would fuel further violence, injustice and hatred and must be categorically rejected by all parties and the international community.
Justice is not selective, and peace cannot be built on hostage-taking
We are relieved that four Armenians are finally free. But we categorically reject any attempt to frame their return as a “generous gesture” by the detaining power. Equally, Armenian authorities must not allow human lives — POWs, detainees, the missing or the forcibly disappeared — to be instrumentalized for domestic political positioning or electoral messaging.
Peace cannot be built on hostage-taking. Justice cannot be built on selective releases.
Until every Armenian unlawfully held in Baku is freed; until the fate of every missing person is fully clarified; and until the right of return of forcibly displaced Artsakh Armenians is guaranteed and implemented in accordance with international law, this crisis remains unresolved — and the world must treat it as such.
Good news, but it is not enough. The Armenian hostages (since they are not “prisoners” in the legal sense) who were released by the criminal regime of Azerbaijan, don’t include the Artsakh leaders and politicians. I wonder why? Could it be that they happen to be Pashinyan’s enemies and potential rivals, who criticised Pashinyan for his treachery, for his betrayal, and for his selling out of Artsakh? No wonder why Pashinyan won’t lift his finger for them. He hopes that they die one by one in Azerbaijani prisons, and in this way remove his potential rivals.
What are you talking about comrade? When were they his enemies?
@reader
You know very well that your Turkophile “hero” Pashinyan regards these Armenian patriots rotting in Azerbaijani jails as his enemies and as his potential rivals, because they criticized him for selling out Artsakh, betraying Armenian national interests and for constantly appeasing Azerbaijan and Turkey.
Azerbaijan had no obligations to the two Syrian jihadists in prison in Armenia, to have their release in their political calculus. For the Syrian government, those two Syrian jihadists have not been an issue whatsoever. The Syrian government has never raised the issue of their imprisonment in Armenia. There got to be more for securing the release of the four Armenians held in Baku, than a prisoners’ exchange. The Prime Minister alluded to it, in his most recent answering to the journalists – 16 hours ago. The recording is online.
First of all, the two Syrian jihadist terrorists who were released were paid-mercenaries which means they made their living by spilling Armenian blood potentially and getting involved in an armed conflict against us on behalf of our enemies, recruited by Turkish terrorist Er-dog-an and paid by terrorist Aliyev’s stolen petrodollars, and therefore they should have been treated worse than our enemy combatants by incompetent and dysfunctional Armenian government. They were there to kill Armenians in exchange for money. They should have been executed in utmost brutal fashion.
Those few Armenians released were not combatants, even though I believe every Armenian has the right to pick up arms against this despicable enemy, and therefore they were hostages illegally detained and tortured because they happen to be Armenians and they were kept, with bogus charges claimed against them, but in reality to be used as bargaining chips to extort more concessions from our unpatriotic and politically ignorant and gullible traitor-in-chief Pashinyan. Among many, this is yet another one of Pashinyan-Aliyev dog and pony shows carefully planned for the upcoming Armenian election in June to deceive people for the third time that they are doing something positive towards peace which in reality is nothing more than loser Pashinyan’s full capitulation at the expense of Armenia and the Armenian nation. Our filthy enemies, a bunch of wolves in sheep’s clothing, need our Armenian sheep Pashinyan in office to get all that they never dreamed in their wildest dreams of getting from him and more. They fully understand the alternative to Pashinyan is not going to end up well for them so they will come up with all sorts of schemes to keep this delusional fool in office. Let’s hope all their dreams turn into nightmares come election time!
Can anyone inform us … Am I corect in assuming that Armenia has returned ALL Azeri POW’s a long time ago???
@Shant
Yes, Armenia has returned every Azeri POW, and additionally other Azeris who illegally crossed Armenian territory and were arrested and jailed for trespassing and/or for other criminal activities as well. Azerbaijan has not reciprocated at all, and who knows how many more Armenian hostages it is holding that we don’t know of, because numerous Armenian soldiers and civilians went missing during the Azerbaijani blockade and conquest of Arfsakh, and some of them could still be alive rotting in Azerbaijani prisons.
I remember reading about an incident in July of 2014 during which two of three armed Azerbaijani criminals who had crossed into Armenian controlled Karvachar “kelbajar” district, under the disguise of “visiting the graves of their families” were captured by the Armenian authorities and later tried and sentenced by Artsakh criminal court for sabotage and the murder of a 17 year old Armenian boy. The third Azerbaijani criminal was killed. Of the two captured Azerbaijani criminals, ilgam Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev, one was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and the other for 22 years in confinement. Following the 2020 joint terrorist Turkish and Azerbaijani invasion of liberated Armenian territories, they were both released and returned to Azerbaijan for no reason at all by incompetent and dysfunctional Pashinyan and with no regards to the victim’s family in mourning and the crime the two Azerbaijani criminals had committed. These two criminals, in confinement only for a few years, got away with the murder of a young Armenian boy whose life was stolen from him while the son of this unpatriotic and flip-flopping psychopath Pashniyan served, symbolically or otherwise, in territories he first declared as Armenian and then as Azerbaijani territory! If this fool had any honor he would have apologized for all the damage he had caused the nation and would have resigned voluntarily half dozen years ago!