Azerbaijan’s border guard service said that the 61-year-old man, Rashid Beglarian, illegally crossed a local section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Karabakh authorities insisted, however, that Beglarian walked to Lachin from the nearby Karabakh village of Mets Shen. They said initially that he lost his way “under the influence of alcohol.”
But the Karabakh prosecutor’s office claimed on Wednesday that Beglarian was in fact “secretly kidnapped” by Azerbaijani servicemen as he walked towards Armenia through the Lachin corridor blocked by Baku. His whereabouts remain unknown, it said in a statement.
Beglarian has lived in Khndzristan, another Karabakh village located several dozen kilometers east of Mets Shen, since the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war. His two sons and the village mayor said on Wednesday that they don’t know why he travelled to Mets Shen.
“He didn’t live with us,” one of the sons, Armen Beglarian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “We too learned [about his detention] from the Internet.”
The authorities in Stepanakert said they promptly asked Russian peacekeepers to help secure the man’s release. It is not clear whether the Azerbaijani side is ready to free him.
Another Karabakh resident, Vagif Khachatrian, was arrested by Azerbaijani border guards on Saturday while being evacuated by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to Armenia for urgent medical treatment.
Khachatrian was taken to Baku to stand trial on charges of killing and deporting Karabakh’s ethnic Azerbaijani residents in 1991. Karabakh officials strongly deny the accusations. They as well as the Armenian government condemned his arrest as a violation of international humanitarian law.
According to officials in Yerevan, the European Court of Human Rights has given Baku until August 8 to provide it with information about the 68-year-old man’s health and detention conditions.
Khachatrian’s family has expressed serious concern about his safety. His Yerevan-based daughter Vera said the ICRC has assured her that Red Cross representatives in Baku are seeking permission to visit him again in custody.