Lawyers for 3 Armenian Captives Have Appealed to Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court, S

David Babayan testifying in an Azerbaijani court during his sham trial

Artsakh’s former Foreign Minister David Babayan, in a new audio recording from his Baku prison cell, has announced that lawyers for three of his fellow Armenian prisoners have filed an appeal with Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court.

In the recording, which was sent to the News.am agency, Babayan prefaced his announcement by saying that “two important things have happened over the past 10–12 days” concerning their trial.

“This is not just a trial against us; this is a trial against the Armenian people, or against international law, against the commandments of God,” Babayan added before outlining the appeals.

“On the 18th of the month [September], they gave us the electronic version of the appellate court’s ruling. Naturally, just as before, there were no signatures on it, not even the slightest indication that it is an official document. Nevertheless, they brought it and gave it to us—it consists of 47 volumes in total,” Babayan said.

“The second thing is that our defense attorneys have filed an appeal with their Supreme Court. The lawyers for three people have filed appeals; they have not filed them for the others, or we are unaware that they have done so,” Babayan said, without specifying who the three individuals are.

Babayan, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment in Baku, said that although the defense attorneys have filed an appeal, they have not met with the defendants.

“A fairly well-substantiated appeal has been filed. I want to thank my lawyer because all the violations of the law and international law are cited there,” he said.

According to Babayan, the appeals process is now beginning at Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court. He emphasized that he does not know when the case will be heard, but said he knows how it will end.

“In other words, the same legal, political and moral violations—the gross abuses—will take place again. But that is not what matters to us. What matters is simply the fact that we go through this formal legal stage, both for the historical record and for our future steps,” Babayan said.

Regarding the appellate court’s ruling, Babayan emphasized that 99.9 percent of it was “copied” from the Azerbaijani prosecutor’s case and the decision of military court where the former Artsakh leaders were tried, adding that the ruling “does not differ in any way and is a copy-pasted document.”

He explains that the court has used a different approach in “fabricating evidence.”

“Here they have chosen a slightly different option, they have censored what we said, they have removed some important things—and this is widespread,” Babayan added.

“For example, I am being accused of large-scale financial abuses, even though I have never been involved in business. I say, you have presented it as though I am the owner of British Petroleum. Or, for example, I am being accused of having been, from September 1988 until December 28, 1991, in some committee that made decisions about war and peace. Fine, I say sarcastically, September 1988 is understandable—I was entering the 10th grade. Perhaps that was their criteria. But why December 28, 1991, rather than the 27th or 29th? That is incomprehensible. In other words, this is a document that has gone through a very low-level form of censorship,” he said.

“Let me also point out that the final, 47th volume of the appellate court materials, consisting of 333 pages, was not accepted at all. It contains the reasoning behind the decision explaining why all of those rulings are being upheld, but it was not presented at all,” Babayan added.

There are currently 19 Armenian captives being held in Azerbaijani prisons. They have been sentenced to terms ranging from 15 years to life imprisonment.

In Azerbaijan, a country widely criticized for serious human rights violations, the trials have been conducted behind closed doors, without the presence of international observers or media representatives.