Azerbaijan has reportedly placed all 19 Armenian detainees, including former Nagorno-Karabakh officials, in the high-security Umbaki prison.
RFE/RL reported on Tuesday that the prisoners were transferred to Umbaki from the State Security Service (DTX) detention centre. They additionally cited Siranush Sahakyan, a representative of the Armenian prisoners at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), as saying that three of the detainees have been serving their sentences at Umbaki since 2023.
‘Three individuals had already been kept in this facility since 2023, while 16 others were transferred there — these are the Armenians convicted in February’, Sahakyan said.
Sahakyan also said that after lengthy negotiations, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture carried out a short visit last year to prisons in Azerbaijan, including Umbaki. The report has been completed, but Azerbaijan, Sahakyan said, did not agree to its publication.
‘This leaves us to draw conclusions about what extremely serious and alarming issues regarding torture were raised, that the state refuses to give consent and refrains from making the findings public’, Sahakyan told RFE/RL.
The detainees include the former political and military leadership of Nagorno-Karabakh alongside other Armenians.
Javid Rzazada, a lawyer representing former Nagorno-Karabakh President Arayik Harutyunyan, told OC Media that he has not received any news about the transfers, but that he would try to verify it.
He added that Umbaki prison consists of two sides — one is a prison, while the other houses a detention centre. The detention centre has been in operation since 2023.
Agshin Mammadli, the lawyer representing former Nagorno-Karabakh Parliamentary Speaker Davit Ishkhanyan, separately confirmed that the transfer had taken place, but was unable to pinpoint when it happened. He additionally clarified that the prisoners were placed in the Umbaki pre-trial detention centre.
‘It’s not a prison, but a pre-trial detention centre. The verdict also states that the prisoner will be held in a pre-trial detention centre until the verdict comes into force’, he explained.
‘In other words, there are no violations there, everything is legal. Sometimes you see that there are too many prisoners, and they are transferred from one pre-trial detention centre to another’.
Mammadli additionally said that the Armenian detainees would be held at Umbaki’s pre-trial detention centre for the duration of their appeal against their sentences.
‘They will remain there for this period, and then they will be sent to prison’.
Asked about the conditions in which they were being kept, Mammadli said that he ‘had no information’, but noted that the 19 Armenian prisoners were being kept in isolation from other prisoners.
‘They have no contact with other people. They interact with other Armenian prisoners only in their rooms’, he said, adding that they were most likely being held in ‘separate rooms created for them in this detention centre’.
‘I don’t know exactly how many of them are being held together. There are different cells. They are divided into two, four, eight, twelve, and so on’, Mammadli said, claiming that the Armenian detainees ‘have always been satisfied with the conditions of detention’.
Imprisoned OC Media contributor and researcher Bahruz Samadov is also serving his prison sentence on charges of state treason at Umbaki. Reports periodically emerge of the authorities’ mistreatment of Samadov, including through psychological abuse.
Aytan Farhadova
On 5 February, five former Nagorno-Karabakh officials were sentenced to life imprisonment by the Baku Military Court, while two former presidents received 20 years in prison due to their age. The remaining eight Armenians received sentences varying from 15 to 19 years.
Days later, the same court sentenced former Nagorno-Karabakh State Minister Ruben Vardanyan to 20 years in prison.
In January, Azerbaijan handed over four Armenian prisoners it had in its custody to Armenia. Following this, Azerbaijan rejected suggestions that more Armenian prisoners could be released.
For ease of reading, we choose not to use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’, or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.
