“Steps cannot fail to be taken, but I don’t think it is appropriate to talk about those steps on any platform,” Galian told journalists. “This is a very sensitive issue, and we can’t make many comments on it for the simple reason that such comments might damage the people who are in that situation now.”
An Azerbaijani military court began the separate trials of Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian billionaire and philanthropist, and 15 Karabakh Armenians on January 17. The defendants facing a long list of accusations include three former Karabakh presidents -- Arayik Harutiunian, Bako Sahakian and Arkadi Ghukasian. They all were captured by Azerbaijan during or shortly after its September 2023 military offensive that forced Karabakh’s entire population to flee to Armenia and restored Azerbaijani control over the region.
In contrast with an outpouring of support for the captives voiced by prominent public figures in Armenia and its worldwide Diaspora, the Armenian government has pointedly declined to condemn their trials. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian claimed later in January that an explicit condemnation would only harm them.
Pashinian’s critics say that he is simply afraid of angering Baku. Vardanyan’s U.S. lawyer, Jared Genser, similarly complained late last month that the Armenian government is doing little to try to get Baku to free his client and the other defendants.
Vardanyan, who served as Karabakh premier from November 2022 to February 2023, went on another hunger strike on Tuesday to protest against what he called a “judicial farce” and “political show.” In a statement circulated via his family on Wednesday, he also decried “egregious due process abuses” which he said were committed by Azerbaijani authorities before and during his trial. Armenian government officials did not publicly react to the hunger strike as of Thursday evening.
Critics accused Pashinian last fall of helping Baku legitimize Vardanyan’s continuing imprisonment with his scathing comments about the tycoon. Speaking during a news conference last August, the Armenian premier wondered who had told Vardanyan to renounce Russian citizenship and move to Karabakh in 2022 and “for what purpose.”
Pashinian seemed to echo Azerbaijani leaders’ earlier claims that Vardanyan was dispatched to Karabakh by Moscow to serve Russian interests there. Vardanyan hit back at him in a September statement also circulated by his family.