Aliyev rewards his soldiers for torture: Daniel Ioannisyan at the OSCE

Torture, unfortunately, remains a problem in Armenia as well. Yet, it is incomparable to the situation in some problematic member states. But Armenian civil society has recorded a number of cases when the police officers who committed torture were not only unpunished, but were appointed to higher positions… Even when the fact of torture was confirmed by the Prosecutor’s Office. 

Extracting confessions through torture remains one of the main tools for solving crimes. This is a result of the very low capacity of the police in Armenia. 

I should mention, that just 11 percent of the recorded cases of robbery and 23 percent of murders in Armenia reach the court, which is a very low rate and does not ensure the implementation of the mechanism of inevitability of punishment.

And the lack of ability to solve crimes by other methods leads to the justification of the torture method. Unfortunately, there is no understanding in Armenia that solving a crime through torture is also a crime.

But sadly, it is very difficult to talk about torture in Armenia, when there are many alarming reports of torture of Armenian prisoners of war and captive civilians by Azerbaijan and even about killing them through torture.

There was a case of Armenian lightly injured POW receiveing first aid from Azerbajani soldiers but then his dead body was returned to Armenia with signs of torture.

The representative of Azerbaijan was talking about terrorists and mercenaries here. It makes me recall that it was Azerbaijan that brought thousands of mercenaries recruited from Syria to our region in 2020, armed them and directed to join its attack against Nagorno Karabakh. This is a fact confirmed by a number of respected investigative journalists.

And the representative of such a state names two Armenian organizations as terrorist organizations, one of which dose not exist for 25 years, and the other is scouting organization that does not have weapons or ammunitions.

The representative of Azerbaijan talks about investigations against persons who committed war crimes in his country. Such an investigation was initiated in 2020 against soldiers Gardashkhan Abishov and Rashid Aliyev, but instead of punishment, they received medals from Ilham Aliyev on September 17 of this year.

This is real attitude of Azerbajan to torture and war crimes. Will Azerbajani soldiers who executed 7 Armenian POWs be punished? I hope so, but most likely, they will receive another medals from their president Ilham Aliev.

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