Azerbaijan accuses Vardanyan of planning ‘terrorist operation’

Former Nagorno-Karabakh state minister Ruben Vardanyan has been accused of ‘personally draw[ing] up’ an action plan for a terrorist operation against Azerbaijani diplomats abroad, amongst other charges.

The Azerbaijani pro-government media outlet APA reported that according to the indictment announced at Thursday's trial, Vardanyan initiated an operation code-named ‘Nemesis-2’ to commit terrorist attacks against Azerbaijani diplomats abroad, as well as citizens performing official and public duties.

Nemesis was an operation launched in the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation party, as part of which the organisers and perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide were assassinated in different parts of the world.

This was not the only terrorism charge brought against the Russian–Armenian businessperson and billionaire.

According to the charges, Vardanyan also provided funds to VoMA [The Art of Survival], ‘for the organisation of training for the purpose of committing acts of terror acts against Azerbaijani citizens by instructors of that organisation’.

VoMA is a non-governmental movement in Armenia that provides military training to civilians, which is considered a terrorist group in Azerbaijan.

Other charges

In September 2022, Vardanyan denounced his Russian citizenship and moved to Nagorno-Karabakh, where he was appointed State Minister by then-President Arayik Harutyunyan two months later. He was dismissed in February 2023, but remained heavily involved in Nagorno-Karabakh politics.

He was detained by Azerbaijan along with seven other former Nagorno-Karabakh officials in September 2023 as they attempted to cross into Armenia following Azerbaijan’s final assault on the region.

Azerbaijani authorities accused Vardnayn of ‘illegally cross[ing]’ its territory in September 2022 and financially supporting and providing ‘illegally acquire[d] and import[ed]’ military equipment to ‘armed formations and groups’ in Nagorno-Karabakh.

According to the charges, he used his funds, as well as others collected ‘under the guise of the “Aurora” foundation, [...] “We are our mountains” organisation, and other aid campaigns’.

The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative was co-founded by Vardanyan in 2015, on the occasion of the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, for ‘supporting projects that honour their saviours’ worldwide. In turn, We Are Our Mountains implemented development projects in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Vardanyan was also charged with paying salaries to ‘ “local self-defense groups”,  [...] as well as other armed groups and units consisting mainly of professional soldiers’.

Additionally, he was accused of negotiating with a Russian company, named only as AKVA, ‘to establish a joint venture for the production of guided anti-aircraft missiles and complexes, target detection stations, battery and radio transmitter blocks, and other devices’.

However, this was not the whole list of the charges. The indictment announcement is set to be continued in the next hearing, scheduled to be held on 17 February.

In December, Vardanyan’s legal team noted that Azerbaijani prosecutors had unveiled ‘some 45 potential charges’ against the former official and that the charges covered 20 different Azerbaijani criminal code articles.

The court cases against Vardnayan and other former officials and representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh began on 17 January. They are accused of committing a total of 2,548 crimes, including genocide, slavery, enforced disappearance of persons, torture, financing of terrorism, and the creation of a criminal association.

Ahead of his first court hearing, Vardanyan published a statement saying that he had given ‘no testimony’ since the day of his arrest in September 2023 and that all protocols bearing his signature ‘are falsifications’.

In the same statement, he reiterated his ‘complete innocence and the innocence of my Armenian compatriots also being held as political prisoners’, calling it a ‘politically motivated case against us’.

During Thursday’s hearing, Azerbaijani authorities also announced an indictment that ‘under the leadership and with the direct and indirect participation of [the] Armenian state’, ‘military aggression and acts of terror’ were planned in Azerbaijani territory.

Those reportedly involved included former Armenian presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, as well as former high-ranking military officials of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Azerbaijani authorities claimed that between the late 1980s to 20 September 2023, the country suffered material damage to ecology and nature in the amount of ‘more than ₼13.4 billion ($7.9 billion)’, ‘a total of 18,351 people were deliberately killed’, including soldiers and civilians, as well as Armenians’ ‘intentionally’ damaging of more than ₼900 million ($530 million) of the Azerbaijani defence arsenal.

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Azerbaijan dismissed the statement, calling it ‘completely baseless and ridiculous’.

OC MediaArshaluys Barseghyan