News - Samvel Babayan: Former presidents of Karabakh must stand trial

Arkadi Ghukasyan, Bako Sahakyan, Arayik Harutyunyan, Samvel Shahramanyan։ these four people must be brought to justice and stand trial, they brought Artsakh to destruction with their 22 deputies, former Secretary of the Council of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh, hero of Artsakh Samvel Babayan said in an interview to Public Television. "Besides, they announced with the second point that Armenia should withdraw its army. Armenia does not have an army there, what army should be withdrawn? I know who wrote that text, the Russian side wrote that text, gave it to Armenia put it back into the game, as if Armenia has not fulfilled its duty, Azerbaijan is striking again, these people have gone to it and handed over the entire army's arsenal to Azerbaijan: 100 tanks, 160-170 howitzers, grads, TORs, weapons of an entire army, without harming it,” he said. According to him, there was an agreement with Azerbaijan by which all this could be avoided. "We could have created our own autonomous republic on 4400 square kilometers, have our own guards ... these people did not allow," he said, noting that Azerbaijan had agreed to this proposal. Babayan stated that he did not personally negotiate with Azerbaijan, but through mediators, and there was already an agreement reached. "Those people seized power [in Karabakh] and committed a crime," he said. Samvel Babayan said he did not present this option to Artsakh authorities, because they would not listen, nor did they invite him to any security meeting in the last 15 days. "They must stand trial, they are state criminals, the people made a referendum, chose independence, they canceled that independence with a document they had no right to, and handed over Karabakh to Azerbaijan in its entirety, and now they are evacuating the people. These people are state criminals, Armenia spent 500 million drams a year so that these people return, to improve their lives, and at the end, they wrote that Armenia is the criminal. Let me say more: the heavy equipment that Azerbaijan has accepted can be checked, it is the equipment captured from Azerbaijan in the 90s, it does not belong to Armenia, let them look at the numbers and see," he stressed.