Even with prosecutions, victims in Azerbaijani torture case remain dissatisfied
The authorities have promised justice for victims in the “Tartar case” and followed up with arrests and annulled verdicts. But the victims’ families say it’s not enough.
Even as the Azerbaijani authorities begin to restore justice in the country’s most notorious torture case in years, victims and their families say the government still isn’t doing enough.
On May 24, a group of families of victims organized a small protest in front of the General Prosecutor's Office in Baku to call attention to the slow pace of justice in the case. “The investigation was launched only because of our struggle,” Valida Ahmadova, the mother of one victim, told reporters. “But we’re unsatisfied with this investigation so we've gathered here.”
In recent months, authorities have arrested several law enforcement officers accused of torturing suspects in what has become known as the “Tartar case,” in which hundreds of soldiers and military officers were tortured after being accused of being Armenian spies. (The accused all denied the accusations.) Prosecutors also have annulled some verdicts of those who were wrongly charged in the case, and exonerated one.
On April 19, the General Prosecutor’s Office released an update on the new ongoing investigation into the case. It said that seven additional officers accused of torturing suspects had been arrested, bringing to 11 the total number of arrests made in the investigation. It also identified 280 new victims of torture, bringing the total number of victims to 397. “We’re continuing to take measures to identify and interrogate the victims, as well as servicemen who committed illegal acts,” the statement said.
It also announced that one soldier was formally exonerated: Elchin Guliyev, who was killed in May 2017 after being tortured and accused in the case.
It was Guliyev’s mother, Valida Ahmadova, who organized the May 24 protest. She said that while some low-level officers had been arrested, senior officials who ordered the tortures have not been touched. “Murderers are walking free. Every survivor who is questioned names the murderers and torturers, but they aren’t either fired from positions or arrested,” she said.
Meanwhile, 25 who were convicted of treason – wrongly, they say – remain behind bars. According to the prosecutor's office, appeals have been sent to the court to annul verdicts of 10 people convicted of lesser charges in the case, as “irregularities” were detected in their cases. Verdicts on 16 others in the case have already been annulled, their cases returned to prosecutors.
Human rights defender Rasul Jafarov, who has been closely monitoring the case, told local news outlet Turan that five of the most recently arrested former officers were those who carried out the tortures. Only the other two were higher-ranking officers who ordered the abuse. “Our approach is that the investigation must identify the circle of everyone involved in these crimes,” he said.
The case began in 2017, when the authorities accused hundreds of soldiers serving in the city of Tartar, near what was then the line of contact with Armenian forces in Karabakh, of committing treason. At least nine of the accused died of torture, and the majority were discharged from the military.
For years, the authorities remained silent in the face of accusations of mass torture from victims and human rights groups, but in December launched a new investigation into the case.
Heydar Isayev is a journalist from Baku.
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