Torture in Azerbaijani Army: Search for Armenian Spies, BBC Reports

The British BBC has published an extensive article regarding the torture within the Azerbaijani army. According to Armenpress, the author of the article, Maheram Zeynalov, interviewed soldiers who were victims of torture and their relatives.

"As a result of torture, 9 soldiers died, dozens were injured, and 25 convicts were accused of state treason. This is the picture of the Azerbaijani army in 2017," wrote the author.

In May 2017, Azerbaijan's Prosecutor General's Office, State Security Service, Ministry of Defense, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a joint statement stating that soldiers had been arrested on charges of espionage in favor of Armenian special services. This was all the information regarding the case, which became more widely known as the 'Terteryan case.' The widespread torture became known to the public only in 2019, when the details of the aforementioned case began to emerge.

Maheram Zeynalov discussed the case with the wife of the tortured soldier Ruslan Ozhagverdiyev, Ravan. She believes that if her husband had confessed to espionage, he would have survived. Ravan recalls that on June 15, 2017, her husband went to his military unit and thereafter stopped answering calls. Later, the military personnel informed Ravan that her husband had been taken, but did not disclose where or why.

"In the morning, they informed me that my husband had died," recalls Ravan. According to the official conclusion, the cause of Ruslan Ozhagverdiyev's death was a heart attack during training. Ravan found this examination questionable and later another examination was assigned, which revealed that her husband had died from a chest injury.

Ravan is one of the relatives of dozens of soldier victims who sued the Azerbaijani military prosecutor's office. In court, from the testimonies of other soldiers, she learned how her husband was tortured.

"They stuffed my husband's mouth with a t-shirt, strangled him, and demanded that he confess that he was a spy, saying, 'You have a choice: either die or confess,'" Ravan remembers.

In the court, Ravan discovered that her husband fell victim to false accusations stemming from the torture endured by another soldier.

Human rights defenders in Azerbaijan have been compiling lists of political prisoners since the mid-1990s, marking the time when Heydar Aliyev, the father of current President Ilham Aliyev, became president. Human rights defender Oktay Gulyaliev noted that those imprisoned in the 'Terteryan case' are also likely to be included in this list by the end of the year.