'I can't walk anymore': Sick Armenian prisoner denied medical care In Azerbaijan

The wife of Vicken Euljekian, one of the 23 Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan, on Tuesday renewed her appeals for his release, saying that he is not receiving adequate medical care despite his worsened health, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reported.

Euljekian, 46, is a native of Lebanon who had moved to Nagorno-Karabakh and worked there as a taxi driver years before the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war. He and a Lebanese-Armenian friend, Maral Najarian, were detained by Azerbaijani forces outside the Karabakh town of Shushi on November 10, 2020 hours after a Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the six-week war.

Euljekian was accused of being a terrorist and mercenary and illegally entering Azerbaijan. Najarian risked similar accusations before being released and repatriated in March 2021.

Euljekian, who has dual Armenian and Lebanese citizenships, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June 2021 after a short trial condemned by Armenia’s government and human rights groups as a travesty of justice. His health has since been a cause for serious concern for his family and friends.

The concerns deepened after Azerbaijani prison authorities allowed him to phone his Lebanese wife, Linda Iman, on Monday for the first time in nearly two months.

“His voice was changed, weak,” Iman told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “I asked, ‘What happened to you, Vicken?’ He said, ‘Linda, I can't walk anymore, my legs hurt me too much.’”

“My husband’s condition is very, very bad,” she said. “When I think that he already needs a wheelchair, my heart sinks.”

Iman cited Eulkejian as saying that Azerbaijani prison guards are refusing to give him medication prescribed by doctors. She suggested that his health condition began steadily deteriorating due to torture to which she believes he was subjected after his detention. She pleaded with the Armenian government and the international community to “do something” to have her husband freed.

The Azerbaijani authorities until recently allowed representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to periodically to visit the captives to inspect their detention conditions, inquire about their health and arrange phone calls between them and their families. They most recently did so in June. The ICRC lost that exclusive access after being forced to end its mission in Azerbaijan on September 3. The captives’ families are now even more concerned about their treatment.

An Armenian lawyer representing the prisoners said later in September that some of them claimed to have tried to commit suicide in phone calls with their relatives in Armena. Shortly afterwards, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Azerbaijan to submit by November 4 fresh information about the detention and health conditions. It is not clear whether Baku has complied with the order.