Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[KavkazUzel] Karabakh resident Vagif Khachatryan, sentenced by a court in Azerbaijan to 15 years in prison, declared his innocence during the appeal hearing and asked the court to acquit him.
As the "Caucasian Knot" wrote, on November 7, 2023, a court in Baku sentenced Karabakh resident Vagif Khachatryan to 15 years in prison, finding him guilty of participating in crimes against residents of the Azerbaijani village of Meshali. In his last word, Khachatryan declared his innocence.
A resident of Nagorno-Karabakh, ethnic Armenian Vagif Khachatryan was detained on July 29, 2023 at the Lachin checkpoint when he tried to go to Armenia for treatment. In Azerbaijan, he is accused of attacking the Azerbaijani village of Meshali in 1991.
| They’ve been carrying a grudge for over forty years? Wow. |
Khachatryan did not admit guilt at a hearing in the Baku Military Court. The court interrogated the victims, residents of the village of Meshali, one of whom demanded that Khachatryan be sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Baku Court of Appeal held a preliminary hearing today to consider the appeal against the verdict of Vagif Khachatryan, accused of participating in the genocide in the village of Mesheli, Khojaly region, as part of illegal Armenian armed formations. The accused Vagif Khachatryan testified at the trial chaired by Judge Hasan Akhmedov, Report agency reported today.
Khachatryan said that both he himself and his lawyer Radmila Abylova filed an appeal against the verdict. “I swear, I’m innocent. I don’t know any of those who accuse me. The indictment says that I killed people... But me was not there,” the Media.Az agency quoted him as saying.
Lawyer Radmila Abilova asked the court to acquit her client.
Representative of the Khojaly district administration Murad Huseynov and the state prosecutor asked to uphold the verdict. The next court hearing is scheduled for January 15, the publication says.
The "Caucasian Knot" also wrote that Khachatryan's daughter Vera insists that her father is innocent: according to the woman, Azerbaijani investigators had photographs of a man unknown to her, who was declared Vagif Khachatryan in his youth.
59 people were recognized as victims in the Khachatryan case . The investigation believes that on December 22, 1991, Vagif Khachatryan took part in the mass murder of residents of the village of Meshali, Khojaly region. According to the case materials, 25 people were killed, 14 were wounded, and 358 village residents became refugees. Khachatryan was convicted under Articles 103 “Genocide” and 107 “Deportation or forced relocation of the population” of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan.
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