Jared Genser, International Counsel to Ruben Vardanyan, on the 20-Year Sentence Handed Down in Baku
“The conviction & sentence of Ruben Vardanyan to 20 years in prison by the Baku Military Court on manufactured charges is simply a travesty of justice. A respected businessman and philanthropist, Ruben’s only ‘crime’ was standing up for the right to self-determination of the Armenian-Christian people of Nagorno-Karabakh, some 120,000 of whom were victims of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev’s ethnic cleansing campaign that drove them from that region into Armenia. The trial itself was a total sham as it is illegal for civilians to ever be tried before a military court. It was also held in secret, with countless other due process abuses such repeated denials of access to counsel and the court simply ignoring dozens of filed motions that under Azeri law had to each be ruled upon within days of their filing. Beyond that, literally all the so-called ‘evidence’ of the
‘witnesses’ presented to the court was illegal as inadmissible hearsay. Every witness claimed they or family members were injured in attacks by the Armenian military or other armed groups – but the sum total of the ‘evidence’ Ruben was actually connected to or responsible for any of these attacks was their having heard in the Azeri state-run media that he was responsible. That is evidence of nothing at all. As such, Ruben’s conviction and sentence violates both international and Azeri law and all 19 Armenian-Christian political prisoners and POWs must be immediately and unconditionally released. l urge President Donald Trump to follow through on his public commitment to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to secure the release of all of them from President Aliyev so they can safely return to Armenia.”
Jared Genser, International Counsel to Ruben Vardanyan
#freerubenvardanyan #freearmenianprisoners
