The Armenian authorities should immediately petition to the commander of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, Rustam Muradov, with a request that he negotiate with Azerbaijan to return the convicted captives. Boris Avagyan, the former deputy director of the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) State Service of Emergency Situations, told this to Armenian News-NEWS.am Saturday.

"There are all legal grounds for the return of the boys. Yesterday the [Baku] court decision was read, and today they must be released and returned to the Republic of Armenia," he added.

According to Avagyan, by sentencing these Armenian prisoners of war (POWs), Azerbaijan is trying to "prove" to the international community that they are in fact “war criminals.”

"This is a specially staged [court] trial for the international community. They legalized by a court decision the keeping of the prisoners of war in custody for six months," Avagyan added.

To note, by a verdict of the Baku Court on Grave Crimes on Friday, 14 Armenian POWs were sentenced to imprisonment; two of them were sentenced to 4 years in prison, and 12 others—to six months.