Baku court sentences two Armenian POWs to 20 years in prison

A court in Baku on Monday sentenced two Armenian prisoners of war (POWs) to 20 years in jail, the Interfax news agency reported.

Lyudvig Mkrtchyan and Alyosha Khosrovyan were found guilty of allegedly torturing Azerbaijani captives during the first Nagorno-Karabakh war and committing other crimes.

According to the court ruling, they will serve the first 10 years of their sentence in prison and the rest of the sentence in a maximum security colony.

Lyudvig Mkrtchyan (born in 1959) was captured in the Fizuli region on 20 October 2020, while Alyosha Khosrovyan (born in 1967) was detained by the Azerbaijani forces on 3 October last year.

Azerbaijan refuses to release the Armenian POWs and is holding sham trials of them despite the November 9 tripartite statement, which stipulates the return of all POWs and other detained persons.

Armenia handed over to Azerbaijan all the prisoners, as well as those convicted in Artsakh for especially grave crimes, including the abduction and murder of a minor.