News - Armenia Investigative Committee official: 8 of 16 persons captured by Azerbaijan are Karabakh leadership members

As a result of the large-scale military operations unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) on September 19, the whereabouts of about 12 civilians and about 30 servicemen are still unknown. This was announced by Rafayel Vardanyan, Head of the Department of Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the General Military Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Armenia. He said that as a result of the aforesaid military operations, nine civilians were killed, three of them children, and 231 servicemen as well as 80 civilians sustained physical injuries. With respect to the abductions and captures by Azerbaijan, Vardanyan said that as of Monday, there are 16 people from Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijani custody, ten of them are civilians. Eight of the 16 arrested persons are members of the former and current political leadership of Artsakh who detained in Azerbaijani capital Baku prisons on trumped-up charges. He informed that now large-scale investigative and procedural activities, interrogations, examinations of bodies are being carried out within the framework of the proceedings, a number of forensic examinations have been ordered, but their conclusions have not yet been received. "Relatives of the casualties have been recognized as victims, the identification [of the bodies] process has not yet completed, all the persons who were subjected forcible displacement are also have been specified by the body implementing the procedure," said Rafayel Vardanyan.