Deputy Military Prosecutor of Azerbaijan Fuad Mammadov has declared that 68-year-old Vagif Khachatryan – a citizen of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) who was abducted by the Azerbaijani military from a Red Cross vehicle in the Lachin corridor on July 29 – could face new charges.
“If new facts are revealed during the investigation, additional charges may be brought against Vagif Khachatryan, who is accused of massacres of Azerbaijanis in the village of Meshali,” Mammadov said, http://Haqqin.az reports.
According to Mammadov, "the attack on this village was planned, so this crime falls under Article 103 -" genocide ", as well as Article 107 – "emigration and forced displacement of the population."
On July 29, Khachatryan, who was on his way to Armenia as a patient, was abducted by the Azerbaijani border guard at a checkpoint near the Hakari bridge. According to Karabakh Human Rights Defender Gegham Stepanyan, Khachatryan and a foreign representative of the Stepanakert office of the ICRC were put into a Niva car, which drove to the lower part of the Hakari bridge, after about 10 minutes the ICRC representative returned to the checkpoint in a Chevrolet car, Vagif Khachatryan was taken away in an unknown direction. Later it became known that the kidnapped was in one of the hospitals in Baku. He was charged in a fabricated case related to the events that took place in the village of Meshali Khojaly in 1991.
Since December 12, 2022, the sole road connecting Nagorno Karabakh to Armenia – the Lachin Corridor – has been blocked by Azerbaijan. Baku tightened the blockade on June 15, 2023, banning emergency relief supplies that were carried out by Russian peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross through the sole road connecting Karabakh to Armenia and the outside world. The move aggravated the shortages of food, medicine and other essential items experienced by the region’s population.
