Azernews.Az

By Vugar Khalilov

The Azerbaijani Military Prosecutor’s Office has filed a criminal case into the discovery of a mass grave in Khojavand District, Karabakh, Azernews reports, citing the Azerbaijan Prosecutor-General's Office.

The Military Prosecutor's Office has initiated a criminal case in connection with the discovery of a mass burial site of presumably Azerbaijan army servicemen in Khojavand’s Edilli village under Articles 115.4, 120.2.1, 120.2.7, and 120.2.12 of the Azerbaijani Criminal Code, the report reads.

It was established that during the first Karabakh war (1988-1994), military units of the Armenian separatist regime, which illegally operated in Azerbaijan, along with the Armenian armed forces grossly violated the norms and principles of international humanitarian law, including the requirements of Article 17 of Geneva "Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field” (12 August 1949).

In 1993, some 25 prisoners of war, presumably servicemen of the Azerbaijani army, were killed and buried massively on the basis of national hatred by Armenians in Khojavand’s Edilli village, the prosecutor’s office added.

Following an inspection of the territory of Edilli village, the remains of seven individuals were discovered and taken from a mass grave on February 23-26, and the remains of 18 more people were located and removed on September 14-30.

Samples were gathered from the bone remains and submitted to forensic molecular-genetic study after assigning the required experts in the case.

Shamsi Shikhaliyev of Fuzuli District resident, who witnessed the event and was in captivity in Armenia from 28.08.1993 to 14.12.1994, was identified as a victim.

The relevant investigation measures on the criminal case are currently underway, the Military Prosecutor’s Office concluded.

On October 4, another mass grave of Azerbaijani military personnel, killed by the Armenian armed forces in the first Karabakh war (1988-1994), was found in Khojavand District’s Edilli village.

In the same vein, the Military Prosecutor's Office has initiated a criminal investigation into the discovery of landmines in Dashkasan District, the Prosecutor-General’s Office said in a separate report.

On October 1-2, in Dashkasan’s Bugdadag area, some 452 E-001 М anti-personnel landmines of Armenian production, which were buried by Armenian sabotage groups, were discovered and defused by the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry’s engineer-sapper units.

It is assumed that the landmines were buried following the 44-day war with Armenia in 2020, the report added.

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