YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 13, ARMENPRESS. Armenia is carrying out relevant works for returning Armenian citizen Karen Ghazaryan – who is being held captive in Azerbaijan – to Armenia, foreign ministry spokesperson Anna Naghdalyan said at a press briefing. “The issue of returning our compatriot to [Armenia] remains on our agenda,” she said.

Asked about the court proceedings launched by Azerbaijan against Ghazaryan, Naghdalyan stressed that it was clear from the very beginning that Azerbaijan will attempt to orchestrate a judicial process involving the Armenian citizen who appeared in Azerbaijani territory in unknown circumstances. She said Azerbaijan will attempt to falsely present Ghazaryan to be a saboteur before cameras, however, “their preliminary script seemingly failed because Karen Ghazaryan has mental health problems and he wasn’t conscripted for mandatory military service [in Armenia],” she said.

She said that Armenia has submitted all evidence proving the health condition of the captive to Azerbaijan through international organizations, but they have been clearly ignored by Baku.

“By orchestrating court proceedings, Azerbaijan is attempting to accuse a person having obvious health problems with serious charges, which is a gross violation of international humanitarian law,” she said.

She said that all these actions of Azerbaijan have one goal – to falsely present a sick person to be a criminal and try to put an equals sign to some extent between the two saboteurs sentenced in Artsakh for committing serious crimes.

“Let me remind that in 2015 a court in Artsakh sentenced two Azerbaijanis who are accused in illegally crossing the border, possessing firearms, hate-motivated murder a minor, armed violence against a minor, and one of them for an additional double-murder attempt. Azerbaijan is trying to put some kind of an equals sign here, but in reality they are unlikely to succeed,” Naghdalyan said.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan