Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have continuously asked me to play a role in the process of exchange of captured people, the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks stated, responding to a question of Azerbaijan's delegate to PACE concerning Dilgam Askerov convicted in Karabakh.

“Regarding the person who was captured during the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, I have been repeatedly asked by both sides – Armenians and Azerbaijanis – to play some kind of a role in this process. To be honest, it is beyond my mandate to arrange prisoner exchanges and to look at the front-line conflict there. I have urged, as has the Secretary General, the rapid exchange of prisoners, the return of all remains and the treatment of all prisoners in a humane manner, in line with international humanitarian law,” Muiznieks stated during the spring session of the Assembly in Strasbourg.

Azerbaijani citizens Shahbaz Guliyev (born in 1968), Dilgam Asgarov (born in 1960), and Hasan Hasanov—who was killed by the Armenian armed forces while rendering these saboteurs ineffective—had illegally crossed the NKR state border on June 29, 2014, and they were armed with weapons and ammunition. The three had entered the territory of the Shahumyan Region of Karabakh, and as spies, to collect information and carry out espionage.

On July 4, 2014, they had kidnapped and subsequently murdered Karabakh citizen Smbat Tsakanyan, 17, whose body was found on July 15, 2014, and with gunshot wounds, in a forest at the Shahumyan Region.

In addition, on the evening of July 11, 2014, Hasanov had killed Armenia capital city Yerevan resident Sargis Abrahamyan (born in 1971), and severely wounded Armenia’s Dzoraghbyur village resident Karine Davtyan, on the Vardenis-Karvachar Highway. Hasanov was armed and he resisted arrest; as a result, he was neutralized by the NKR special forces. Guliyev and Asgarov, on the other hand, were detained, and they faced trial in the NKR.

Asgarov was charged with espionage; unauthorized border trespass; kidnapping and violence against a minor, committed by an organized group; murder committed by an organized group motivated by ethnic hatred; and attempt of murder of two persons, committed by an organized group, motivated by ethnic hatred.

Guliyev was charged with espionage; unauthorized border trespass; kidnapping and violence against a minor, committed by an organized group; and murder committed by an organized group motivated by ethnic hatred.

And on December 29, 2014, the First Instance General Jurisdiction Court of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic sentenced Dilgam Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev to life and 22 years, respectively, in prison.