“We are in the preparatory phase, the case will be filed in a few weeks,” Siranush Sahakian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

“We will demonstrate that the accusation is political, that no individual criminal act was ever committed by Vardanyan,” she said. “The [Karabakh Armenians’] collective right to self-determination has been illegally qualified [by Baku] as terrorism.”

Vardanyan, who held the second-highest post in Nagorno-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 its practically entire ethnic Armenian population. Seven other former Karabakh Armenian leaders were also arrested during the exodus that followed an Azerbaijani military offensive.

Five of them were sentenced to life imprisonment while the two others as well as Vardanyan received 20-year jail sentences in February at the end of yearlong trials denounced by Amnesty International as a “travesty.” They all denied a long list of accusations brought against them.

Unlike them, Vardanyan decided not to appeal against his sentence, saying that he does not want to legitimize the “politically motivated and unlawful” case.

Sahakian said that Azerbaijani authorities have made the appeal to the ECHR possible by finally providing Vardanyan’s legal team with the full text of the guilty verdict against him. In her words, they remain reluctant to do so with regard to the seven other former Karabakh leaders as well as either other Armenians remaining in Azerbaijani captivity.

“I think they are trying to hinder the process of filing international appeals,” the lawyer claimed.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and other Armenian officials insist that Yerevan has been doing its best to try to secure the release of the Armenian prisoners. Their critics dismiss these assurances. Vardanyan has likewise repeatedly accused the Armenian government of being indifferent to the prisoners’ fate. He has repeatedly lambasted Pashinian in statements from an Azerbaijani prison released through his family.

Davit Ishkhanian, another former Karabakh leader held in Azerbaijan, has gone farther, saying that Armenia’s leadership does not want Baku to free them. Ishkhanian repeated his claims in another audio message publicized by his family on Thursday.

“They [Azerbaijani officials] treat international bodies and the court with scorn and contempt,” he said. “The worst thing is that they simply throw such thoughts in our faces: ‘If your authorities are not doing anything and are not interested in your return, what do you want from international bodies or courts?’”