Former Karabakh separatist Vardanyan loses appeal at Azerbaijani court

The Sabayil District Court in Baku heard the appeal of separatist billionaire Ruben Vardanyan.

As previously reported, the court prolonged Ruben Vardanyan's jail term for four months, according to the APA.

Ruben Vardanyan's lawyer filed an appeal against the court's decision.

At the session in the Baku Court of Appeal, the court decision was read out. Based on the decision, the appeal was not satisfied, the decision of the court of first instance to extend Vardanyan's arrest remains in force.

The Azerbaijani State Security Service continues to investigate the criminal case against Vardanyan.

To recap Vardanyan has been charged with Articles 214-1 (financing of terrorism), 279.3 (participation in the creation and activities of armed formations or groups not provided for by law) and 318.1 (illegal crossing of the state border of the Republic of Azerbaijan) of the Azerbaijani Criminal Code.

Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian tycoon who fueled separatism financially and politically, was the first criminal junta member detained by the servicemen of Azerbaijan’s border service on September 27, 2023.

During the 44-day Armenia-Azerbaijan war in 2020, Yerevan-born Vardanyan was in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan talking about his financial support to the separatist regime in the Azerbaijani territory. Later in September 2022, he moved illegally to Karabakh after renouncing his Russian citizenship.

In Karabakh, he took the office of the self-designed “state minister” of the Armenian separatist entity from November 2022 to February 2023.  He was at the forefront of the calls for the recognition of the so-called “Artsakh”, i.e. Karabakh, as an “independent state”, as well as calls for an armed resistance in Karabakh. Vardanyan also spared no effort to derail a possible dialogue between the Armenian community of Karabakh and the government of Azerbaijan, promoting the separatists as “authorities” Baku should deal with.

The BBC recently published an extensive investigation exposing Ruben Vardanyan.