Azerbaijani security forces detained former Foreign Minister and ex-assistant to the President of Nagorno-Karabakh David Babayan, the Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan reported.
The day before the arrest, on September 28, Babayan announced that he had decided to surrender to the Azerbaijani side. In Azerbaijan, he was charged, among other things, with charges of planning, preparing and launching an aggressive war, recruiting, training and financing mercenaries, as well as organizing terrorism.
On September 29, Azerbaijani security forces also detained the former commander of the Artsakh army, Lieutenant General Levon Mnatsakanyan, and the ex-secretary of the Security Council of the unrecognized republic, Arshavir Gharamyan, at a checkpoint in the Lachin corridor. The Alpha News publication, citing traveling eyewitnesses, reported the detention of the head of the Russian community of Nagorno-Karabakh, Alexander Bordov, but there is no official confirmation of this information.
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Mnatsakanyan was the Minister of Defense of Artsakh from 2015 to 2018, during the same years he commanded the armed forces of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh. Gharamyan also has the rank of lieutenant general. In September 2007, he was appointed chief of the Artsakh police, and a few months later — prosecutor general. Since 2014, the official took the post of director of the local national security service.
On September 27, billionaire Ruben Vardanyan, who headed the regional government, was detained at a checkpoint in the Lachin corridor. The next day, the head of Nagorno-Karabakh Samvel Shahramanyan signed a decree ending the existence of the unrecognized republic. Vardanyan was arrested by the Azerbaijani authorities on suspicion of financing terrorism.
The day before, Armenia filed a lawsuit against Azerbaijan with the International Court of Justice. Yerevan demanded that the Azerbaijani side renounce “any actions directly or indirectly aimed at ousting the remaining ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh,” and also asked to allow representatives of the UN and the Red Cross into the region.
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Armenia asked the court to oblige the government of Ilham Aliyev to “refrain from taking punitive measures against current or former political representatives or military personnel” of the abolished republic.
Press Secretary of the Prime Minister of Armenia Nazeli Baghdasaryan wrote that by the evening of September 29, almost 100 thousand refugees arrived in the republic from Nagorno-Karabakh. According to the Armenian authorities, a total of 120 thousand Armenians lived in the unrecognized republic.
Azerbaijan began shelling Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19, calling the fighting “anti-terrorist measures of a local nature.” The shelling stopped on September 20, when the army of the unrecognized republic agreed to lay down its arms on Baku’s terms. After this, the Armenian population began to leave the region.
Today a rally is taking place in Yerevan in support of Ruben Vardanyan and other Nagorno-Karabakh politicians detained by Azerbaijani security forces.