STEPANAKERT. – The Ombudsman of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic published the second interim report on atrocities committed by Azerbaijan during the April war.

The Azerbaijani armed forces committed war crimes of torture, execution, and mutilation. The war crimes had a systemic and well-organized nature, as they were committed in all three areas by all the regiments of the Azerbaijani armed forces that established control over the NKR civilians or Nagorno-Karabkah Defense Army (NKDA) servicemen on April 2, 2016.

The report says none of the 3 civilians and, presumably, the 4 combatants hors de combats survived the control of the Azerbaijani armed forces.  Their murders seem to be executions merely for being Armenian.

“27 out of the 31 NKR civilians and NKDA servicemen (about 90%), who fell under control of the Azerbaijani armed forces as a result of the Azerbaijani military aggression against NKR, were tortured, executed, or mutilated.

All the NKR civilians under Azerbaijani control were executed and mutilated. One of them, a 92 year old woman, was also tortured. Three NKDA servicemen were beheaded. Two of them were beheaded postmortem, and one was executed by ISIS-style decapitation,” the report says.

“The most widespread war crime was mutilation, including 21 cases of ear cuts-offs. There were 5 cases of torture (including hands cut off, and throats cut). There were 7 cases of execution, mostly by gun-shots. Under the IHL, Azerbaijan bears State Responsibility for the war crimes of its armed forces, and has an obligation to investigate and properly prosecute the perpetrators and others who bear responsibility. The perpetrators and their commanders are also individually responsible”.