Los Angeles, CA – Ruben Vartanyan and 17 other Christian Armenian hostages will face sham secret trials scheduled to begin on January 17, 2025, in Baku Military Court. Ruben Vartanyan has been illegally held in custody for 470 days, 340 of which have been in solitary confinement, and is facing 44 fabricated charges. CFTJ has requested that Azerbaijan allow international legal experts to observe the trials. CFTJ’s request for access remains unanswered.
Ruben Vardanyan, (DOB 5/25/1968) is a businessman and philanthropist who served as State Minister in Nagorno-Karabakh from November 2022 to February 2023. On September 29, 2023, after the military offensive on the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in the forcible displacement of 120,000 Armenians, he was unlawfully detained by Azerbaijan’s State Security Service and transported to prison in Baku. He is one of eight former officials from Nagorno-Karabakh who remain illegally detained in Azerbaijan.
Freedom House ranks Azerbaijan in the top 10 of the most repressive countries in the world.
