Pashinyan accuses Azerbaijan of drugging imprisoned former Nagorno-Karabakh officials

Pashinyan accuses Azerbaijan of drugging imprisoned former Nagorno-Karabakh officials

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Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has accused Azerbaijan, based on ‘intelligence information’ obtained by Armenia, of using ‘banned psychoactive methods’ against Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians imprisoned in Azerbaijan ‘in order to extort narratives and testimonies aimed at inciting regional escalation’.

Pashinyan’s statement came in an interview on Saturday with Armenia’s public broadcaster.

When asked to comment on allegations from the opposition that the government was not doing enough to secure their release ‘because they are your political opponents’, Pashinyan stated that he did not consider those Armenians as his political opponents.

‘Moreover, we hold ourselves accountable that what is happening is not only seriously worrying but will be and is being used to provoke new escalations in the region’ he said.

He said the government was ‘trying to solve this problem with all available means’, adding that currently there were ‘superpowers that have citizens in the same situation in different countries and have not been able to bring them back for years’.

In response, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry released a statement calling Pashinyan’s allegations regarding the use of psychotropic substances ‘completely baseless and ridiculous’.

The Ministry highlighted that ‘allegations of ill-treatment of prisoners in Azerbaijan have been investigated independently, including by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and have been found to be false’.

‘Obviously, such a statement from the Armenian side demonstrates how nervous the political establishment of Armenia is about the ongoing trial against people accused of war crimes who they once openly supported with all means to sustain the act and policy of aggression against Azerbaijan’, the statement read.

On 17 January, the cases of former officials and other representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh imprisoned in Azerbaijan began in court.

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.

Azerbaijan begins court hearings of former Nagorno-Karabakh officials

The Armenian government has so far avoided making official statements regarding the trial.

OC MediaArshaluys Barseghyan