Azerbaijan blames ECHR instead of admitting wartime crimes, lawyer says

Azerbaijan has condemned a recent European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgment in the case V.T. and Others v. Azerbaijan, lodging a formal protest and accusing the court of bias after it ruled in favor of Armenian applicants.

In a landmark ruling on June 18, the ECHR found Azerbaijan responsible for the torture, mutilation and killing of an incapacitated Armenian soldier during the April 2016 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry described the ruling as "unjust, biased and contrary to the provisions of international law." But Armenian lawyer Siranush Sahakyan, who represented the victims’ families, said the reaction underscores Azerbaijan’s unwillingness to confront its own record of wartime atrocities.

“Instead of expressing remorse or pledging to change its practices, Azerbaijan lashes out at international institutions, accusing them of injustice,” Sahakyan told reporters on Wednesday. She rejected claims that the ruling was based on limited testimony, stressing the breadth of evidence presented.

“We submitted an extensive evidentiary record – the destroyed vehicle, forensic examinations of the victims’ injuries, additional analyses that identified the severed head of the Armenian officer and even an interview in which the perpetrator confessed to the crime,” Sahakyan said.