Baku court hands down prison sentence to kidnapped Artsakh man

A court in Baku on Tuesday sentenced Artsakh civilian Vagif Khachatryan to 15 years in jail on fabricated charges.

Khachatryan has to serve five years of his sentence in prison and the rest in a strict-regime penal colony.

The 68-year-old man was abducted and arrested by Azerbaijani border guards at the Lachin Corridor checkpoint on 29 July while being evacuated to Armenia by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for an urgent heart surgery.

Khachatryan was charged with "genocide" and "deportation or forced exile of population" in the village of Meshali on 22 December 1991. He denied all charges against him and asked the court for acquittal.