The legal team for a former top Nagorno-Karabakh official alleged in a Friday letter addressed to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture that their client, former Nagorno-Karabakh Minister of State Ruben Vardanyan, and an unnamed Armenian business leader had been tortured while in custody in Azerbaijan for engaging in a hunger strike. Vardanyan was detained and taken as a political prisoner on September 27, 2023 after he attempted to cross the border into Armenia through the Lachin corridor when Azerbaijani forces started an alleged campaign of ethnic cleansing against the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Vardanyan’s legal team said of his treatment during a hunger strike last month that “Ruben was placed in a punishment cell, denied access to drinking water, deprived of sleep, forced to hold stress positions, denied access to his lawyer, and held in incommunicado detention.”

Jared Genser, Vardanyan’s international counsel said:

Ruben Vardanyan is an inspiring humanitarian and philanthropist who has been advocating for the human rights of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh [Artsakh] for many years. It is extremely revealing that Azerbaijan views him as a threat that must be silenced through arbitrary detention and, more recently, torture and ill-treatment.

On the use of torture by the Azerbaijani authorities, the letter commented that “Azerbaijan’s torture of political prisoners shows no signs of abating … We are still unaware of the full extent of the psychological and physical trauma resulting from this treatment.”

Counsel finished by urging  Azerbaijan to “protect Mr. Vardanyan’s right to physical and mental integrity”.

International lawyers, diplomats and politicians have been calling for Vardanyan’s release, including US Senator Ed Markey, who stated Wednesday, “We must hold Azerbaijan accountable and ensure it doesn’t delay the release of its political prisoners even one more day.” 

This comes as just last month the Center for Truth and Justice (CFTJ), a human rights organization based in Armenia, published a report purporting that acts of genocide have been committed in the Nagorno-Karabakh region since 2021. In August 2023, judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Azerbaijan to let ethnic Armenians who fled Nagorno-Karabakh in September return to their homes and to keep the Armenians remaining in the enclave safe, as part of a set of emergency measures.