Criminal case opened over killing of three Karabakh soldiers in Azeri raid operation

On Thursday March 19 at 08:30 local time an Azerbaijani special forces squad attacked Karabakh positions deployed in the northern direction (Gulistan). After nearly two-hour battle Karabakh troops made the Azeri squad run away. Then they pursued and completely destroyed it on the outskirts of the enemy positions. 

The three killed soldiers are privates Hakob Khachatryan (born in 1996), Edward Hayrapetyan (born in 1995) and Arshak Harutyunyan (born in 1995). Another four soldiers were wounded, two of them still in critical but stable condition in hospital. 

Criminal charges are brought under penal code articles 34-104 (murder or attempted murder of two and more people by an organized military group motivated by national, racial or religious hatred). The investigation is under way. 

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted into armed clashes after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s as the predominantly Armenian-populated enclave of Azerbaijan sought to secede from Azerbaijan and declared its independence backed by succeeding referendum. A truce was brokered by Russia in 1994, although no permanent peace agreement has been signed.

Since then, Nagorno-Karabakh and several adjacent regions have been under the control of Armenian forces of Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh is the longest-running post-Soviet era conflict and has continued to simmer despite the relative peace of the past two decades, with snipers causing tens of deaths a year. –0--