Baku court sentences two Armenian militaries to long prison terms

A military court in Baku has found Ludvig Mkrtchyan and Alyosha Khosrovyan guilty of torturing Azerbaijani soldiers during the first Karabakh war and sentenced each to 20 years in prison.

According to investigators, Mkrtchyan at various times beat up and tortured 11 captured Azerbaijani citizens on the territory of the Khodjavend and Agderin Districts, in the Shusha prison and Yerevan, and also shot an Azerbaijani soldier dead from a submachine gun. As to Khosrovyan, investigators assert that together with Mkrtchyan he "cruelly and inhumanely" treated and tortured the Azerbaijani servicemen captured in 1993-94. Mkrtchyan and Khosrovyan were charged with torture, violation of war laws and customs, creation of illegal armed formations or groupings, and illegal border crossing.

On August 2, Ludvig Mkrtchyan and Alyosha Khosrovyan were sentenced to 20 years in prison each. They will spend their first 10 years in prison; and the rest – in a high security institution, the APA has reported.

Prior to sentencing, the defendants apologized. "We apologize to the President of Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijani people. We ask you to forgive us," the "Trend" reports by quoting the convicts as saying.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 2, 2021 at 12:57 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.