This incident is difficult to fit into the logic of international law, Siranush Sahakyan, representative of the interests of Armenian prisoners at the ECtHR, said in an interview with Media Center on the topic “Azerbaijan's kidnapping of Vagif Khachatryan is a gross violation of human rights: what measures should be taken?”

“International law, of course, has mechanisms for cooperation in the criminal sphere, and they do their best to bring criminals to justice and prevent them from escaping from it. That is, if Azerbaijan believed that Vagif Khachatryan was a criminal, then this criminal could be brought to territorial jurisdiction through the cooperation of international criminal law - as a result of the interaction of the authorities of Armenia, [Artsakh] Karabakh, Russia, why not Interpol," Sahakyan said.

According to her, at first Azerbaijan made an implausible comment that the person was on the international wanted list, which was refuted by the Armenian Ombudsman. Then, through the mission of the Red Cross, Baku fraudulently took Vagif Khachatryan from the jurisdiction of the Karabakh authorities to the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan, where it arbitrarily detained the latter.

“From a human rights standpoint, this is considered an extraordinary rendition. And this violates a number of rights. First of all, this is the right to personal freedom, there is a risk of torture for citizens who have become victims of extradition, and most importantly, international law excludes a fair trial in this case. We cannot expect fair trials in the case of Vagif Khachatryan, since from the very beginning he was transferred under the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan in violation of the law and fundamental guarantees of human rights,” the expert said.

Speaking about the ICRC, Sahakyan noted that Azerbaijan, first of all, had to inform the Red Cross that the list included the name of a person wanted for a crime, who could be detained.

“The Red Cross, in turn, had to inform the family members about this and carry out the process only in case of conscious consent. I am more than sure that Baku initially did not provide such information to the Red Cross and the organization was used to solve its problem. The Red Cross could have tried to prevent the incident in the form of a very harsh response. That is, the highest circles should have been informed about this issue immediately. We do not have information about whether the Red Cross took all necessary comprehensive actions to prevent this incident, including involving higher international authorities and exerting pressure, once they became aware of the risk of detention," the representative of the interests of the Armenian prisoners in the ECHR noted, while calling on structures with more stringent tools to support the mandate of the Red Cross, taking effective steps to prevent obstacles to the activities of the ICRC.

When asked why the Red Cross is passive on this issue, Sahakyan replied that they are constantly afraid of Azerbaijan's reaction.

"Baku consistently creates risks for tactical reasons, threatening to make the Red Cross's activities in Azerbaijan impossible. As a result, the Red Cross operates from a very cautious position to ensure its continuous presence and operations in Azerbaijan," Siranush Sahakyan emphasized.

On July 29, 68-year-old resident of [Artsakh] Nagorno-Karabakh Vagif Khachatryan was abducted and unlawfully detained by Azerbaijan at an illegally installed checkpoint in the [Berdzor] Lachin Corridor.