The Armenian National Committee–International (ANC–International) today published “Justice” According to Azerbaijan: The Prosecution, Trial and Conviction of Ruben Vardanyan. The Special Report examines the case that ended on 17 February 2026, when the Baku Military Court sentenced the philanthropist and former State Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) to 20 years’ imprisonment.

The report is based on the English translations of the 1,969-page indictment and the 1,864-page judgment, published in September 2026. It also draws on a fifteen-part legal analysis by international lawyer Taron Simonyan, published by Pastinfo, and on the findings of independent international bodies. Its conclusion is that the judgment does not prove what it claims to prove, and that its defects can be read in the court’s own text.

Among the report’s findings:

• A sentence for an offence never charged. The court imposed 14 years under Article 214-2 of Azerbaijan’s Criminal Code. That article appears nowhere in the indictment and is absent from the court’s own verdict of guilt. The statutory maximum for the offence is five years.
• No individual act. The judgment cites more than 2,000 forensic medical reports, and none mentions Vardanyan. Of the 540 victims and 77 relatives of victims heard in court, three mention his name, and none describes any act of his.
• Three decades attributed to one man. Much of the conduct charged predates his arrival in Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2022. Some of it dates from 1988–1994, when he was a student and young professional in Moscow.
• Internal contradictions. The court records that he has no prior conviction, yet treats “recidivism” as an aggravating factor. It convicts him of one offence without imposing any sentence for it.
• No fair trial. A military court tried a civilian. His international lawyer was refused entry to Azerbaijan, and the 422 volumes of case files were provided only in Azerbaijani. None of the nearly 60 hearings was open to independent international observers.

“This report does not ask anyone to take our word for it. The indictment and the judgment are public. Their contradictions are on the page, and any lawyer can verify them. Ruben Vardanyan and all the Armenian hostages held in Azerbaijan must be released immediately and unconditionally.]” said Hagop Der Khatchadourian, Chairman, ANC–International.

The report calls on Azerbaijan to release Ruben Vardanyan and all Armenian hostages immediately and unconditionally. Pending release, it calls for independent access to them by the International Committee of the Red Cross. It also urges:

• the European Union, the United States and other states, including the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Belgium and Switzerland, to make the hostages’ release integral to their relations with Azerbaijan and to the Armenia–Azerbaijan peace process;
• the Council of Europe, the OSCE and its Parliamentary Assembly, and the United Nations to seek access to the hostages and to support the applications pending before the European Court of Human Rights.

Vardanyan has been held since 27 September 2023. Azerbaijan currently holds 20 Armenian hostages, including former political and military leaders of Artsakh.

An Armenian-language companion volume, «Ժողովածու», reprints Simonyan’s full series with the permission of Pastinfo and the author.

The full report is available at: https://armeniancause.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/20261026-Vardanyan_English_SpecialReport-fv.pdf 

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