In a decision announced on 17 February, an Azerbaijan‘s court sentenced former Karabakh separatist leader Ruben Vardanyan to 20 years in prison, in the latest conviction of Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh leaders arrested after Baku regained control of the South Caucasus enclave.
According to Azerbaijani media reports in recent hours, the court’s final verdict was announced at a public session of the criminal proceedings against Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian national accused of “crimes against peace and humanity”, “war crimes“, as well as serious crimes related to – among other charges – terrorism and financing terrorist activities, according to the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Vardanyan, who had rejected these charges, had declared himself a “political prisoner“.
During the trial, the Baku Military Court presided over by Judge Zeynal Agayev provided the defendant with an interpreter in his mother tongue – Russian – and a state-appointed lawyer for his defence. In the end, the court sentenced the former minister of the self-proclaimed and dissolved Artsakh Republic, Ruben Vardanyan, to 20 years in prison “under the articles of the criminal code relating to crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes and crimes connected with terrorism and the financing of terrorism”, despite the fact that the state prosecutor had requested a life sentence for Vardanyan.
Vardanyan, a former Russian banker who amassed his fortune as co-founder of the Troika Dialog investment bank in Moscow, headed the administration of the self-proclaimed Artsakh Republic – not internationally recognised by any country – between November 2022 and February 2023, after he announced his renunciation of his Russian citizenship. Forbes magazine estimated the Vardanyan family’s wealth at $1.1 billion. His trial, which began in January 2025, was conducted separately from proceedings against 15 other former Karabakh separatist officials, who were also sentenced this month to sentences including life imprisonment for war crimes.
Azerbaijan’s final recovery of the separatist enclave of Karabakh in 2023 ended nearly three decades of control by Armenian separatists, causing more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee the region for fear of reprisals. After regaining control of the territory – internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan following the dissolution of the USSR – the authorities in Baku arrested several separatist leaders on war crimes charges, despite repeated demands by the Armenian government for their release.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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