As Azerbaijani forces seized and ethnically cleansed the indigenous population of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023, they had an additional mission: capture government officials and supporters from the Republic of Artsakh, the unrecognized statelet that Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians had established on their territory. Perhaps the best parallel to Artsakh and its claims for recognition was Kosovo. While Freedom House ranks Azerbaijan as not only “not free” but among the world’s worst dictatorships, it recognized Artsakh as a democracy, even if flawed, with a political rights score equal to Bosnia’s.
As Azerbaijan sought to integrate Nagorno-Karabakh into its territory, its forces dynamited the parliament to end the symbolism of any democracy in Azerbaijan. It imprisoned 16 Artsakh elected leaders and political officials and charged them with various war crimes and with financing and facilitating terrorism.
The trials began on January 17, 2025. Among the 16 defendants were Arayik Haroutiounian, Arkadi Ghoukassian, and Bako Sahakian, each a former president, as well as billionaire investment banker and philanthropist Ruben Vardanyan, the number two official in Nagorno-Karabakh’s government. The Azerbaijani military court is trying Vardanyan—who faces life in prison—separately from the other 15 defendants.
Azerbaijan holds each of the defendants in deplorable conditions. On February 19, 2025, Vardanyan began a hunger strike to demand international intervention to secure a fair and humane trial in accordance with international law.
[Billionaire philanthropist Ruben] Vardanyan began a hunger strike to demand international intervention to secure a fair and humane trial.
Vardanyan objects to his trial on a number of grounds, both procedural and more substantive. He says the indictment against him lacks proper signatures and contains translation errors that impede his understanding of the charges. The court has denied him the right to summon defense witnesses or file complaints about violations during the investigation and trial. Law appears on his side. As Azerbaijan is a signatory to both the European Convention on Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, it is violating its commitments under those legal instruments by denying Vardanyan his rights.
During the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign, President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio each condemned Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. On February 6, 2025, the U.S. Congressional Armenian Caucus sent a bipartisan letter urging Rubio to take immediate action, both to hold Azerbaijan accountable for “war crimes and ethnic-cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh)” and to secure the release of Armenian detainees and hostages. With Vardanyan’s life in the balance and the other hostages and prisoners held as pawns in Azerbaijan’s disingenuous game, the Trump administration should act.
Rubio’s credibility, especially, is on the line, as Armenians and Azerbaijanis can contrast his actions now with his positions as senator, including his advocacy for Azerbaijani political prisoner Gubad Ibadoghlu at a time when former Secretary of State Antony Blinken would not.
Rather than allow Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to stage Soviet-style show trials to project a false narrative, Rubio should demand U.S. diplomats attend and observe the trials and, if necessary, publicly comment. He should order U.S. Ambassador Mark Libby, who previously participated in Azerbaijan’s Potemkin propaganda tour of Nagorno-Karabakh, to sit in the court for every trial session. This would demonstrate the priority the United States places on the cases and Washington’s commitment to justice and truth.
There is ample precedent. During the Cold War, prominent dissidents like Nobel Laureate Andrei Sakharov would focus attention on the persecution of their peers by seeking to observe Soviet kangaroo court trials.
[Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev seeks to suppress the dissemination of accurate information and to shape public perception.
In 2019, both U.S. and British diplomats sought to attend the Beijing trial of cyber-dissident Huang Qi. While Chinese officials rejected their efforts to observe the trial, their efforts still brought international attention to his case and raised the cost to communist officials of persecuting and harming him. Likewise, when the trial began for two prominent Cuban dissidents arrested in 2021, diplomats from the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Norway, and Sweden each demanded to observe the trial.
Aliyev seeks to suppress the dissemination of accurate information and to shape public perception. While Azerbaijan’s tightly controlled press attends the trials and publishes over-the-top accounts praising Aliyev and demonizing the elected Nagorno-Karabakh leaders, the presence of Libby could change the narrative, whether or not Aliyev’s officials allow him into the court. If Libby attends, he can testify to the fundamental flaws in the cases; if he is prevented from entering the courthouse, Azerbaijan will forfeit the illusion of legitimacy.
It was easy to posture on behalf of human rights and against the eradication of Nagorno-Karabakh’s 1,700-year-old Christian community during the campaign. Now in power, the Trump administration in general, and Rubio in particular, should do the minimum: Order U.S. representatives to observe the trials, and if blocked from observation or if the standards of the trials of the Armenian hostages fall short, respond with a full array of sanctions under the U.S. Global Magnitsky Act against the Aliyev regime for its violations of internationally recognized human rights.
