ECtHR obliges Azerbaijan’s authorities to pay compensation to relatives of two Armenian POWs

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has awarded the compensations in the amounts of 40,000 euros to the family of Mamikon Khodjoyan and the family of Karen Petrosyan, residents of the Tavush Region of Armenia, who were captured and tortured in Azerbaijan in 2014.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that on January 28, 2014, Mamikon Khodjoyan, a 77-year-old Armenian citizen, was detained in the Tovuz District of Azerbaijan. On March 4, the man was handed over to Armenia and placed to a resuscitation ward in a hospital, where he died on May 20. Karen Petrosyan, who lived in the Armenian village of Chinari, was captured on August 7, 2014, and the other day he died suddenly from acute heart failure. According to the Azerbaijan’s authorities, the man was a member of a sabotage group.

According to the materials of Mamikon Khodjoyan’s case, Azerbaijani investigators claimed the man deliberately crossed the border, knowing that he could be captured. The country’s authorities also argued that Azerbaijan was not responsible for the death of the elderly man in Armenia and that he was detained as a prisoner of war (POW) in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

The Strasbourg Court found in the cases of both complainants a violation of the articles on the right to life and on the prohibition of torture, and in the Mamikon Khodjoyan’s case, the ECtHR also recognized a violation of the article on the right to liberty and security of person of the European Convention on Human Rights.

As a result of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in the autumn of 2020, the death toll in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh reached 3788 people, while 224 soldiers and 22 civilians were missing, Armenia reported. On August 11, Armenian human rights defender Artak Zeinalyan reported that Azerbaijan recognized the existence of only 45 Armenian prisoners of war, while Armenia submitted the information about 280 POWs to the European Court of Human Rights.