Azerbaijan seeks life sentence for billionaire former Karabakh official Vardanyan

Sign up now: Get insights on Asias fast-moving developments

BAKU/TBILISI, Dec 18 - Azerbaijani prosecutors on Thursday asked a Baku court for a life sentence for Ruben Vardanyan, a billionaire banker who served as a senior official in the breakaway ‍Armenian ​administration of Nagorno-Karabakh before its collapse in 2023, state ‍news agency Azertac reported.

Armenian-born Vardanyan, who previously held Russian citizenship and made his fortune in Russia, served ​as Karabakhs ​number two official in 2022 and 2023. He faces 42 charges, including terrorism.

A message posted by Vardanyans family on Telegram on Thursday quoted him as saying he does ‍not recognise the trial he has said is unfair, and that he regrets nothing.

Vardanyan ​has previously mounted two hunger strikes in ⁠custody in protest against the trial, and against treatment he describes as torture.

He was arrested in September 2023 while attempting to cross into Armenia amid a mass exodus of the regions roughly 100,000 ethnic ​Armenians after Azerbaijan captured the territory in a lightning offensive.

A slew of former Karabakh presidents and ministers, as ‌well as civilian and military officials, ​were also arrested and taken to Baku.

Vardanyan is being tried separately to 15 other ex-Karabakh officials. Azerbaijani prosecutors said last month they would seek life terms for some, and sentences of 16 to 20 years in prison for others.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but its mostly Armenian population broke away from Baku in the early 1990s after a ‍lengthy war.

Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have said they now want to sign a ​treaty to end almost four decades of intermittent conflict over Karabakh, though peace talks have been slow.

Separately ​on Thursday, Azerbaijans government said it was sending via Georgia ‌the first cargo