Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 25 / Trend M.Tsurkov /
Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to the UN Agshin Mehdiyev has sent a letter to the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, says a statement by the country's permanent mission to the United Nations.
The letter contains the detailed information about the events in Khojaly and the level of brutality and atrocities committed by Armenian military forces.
The paper also notes that apart from the considerable information in the possession of the law enforcement agencies of Azerbaijan, the responsibility of Armenia, as well as its political and military leadership and subordinate local armed groups for the crimes committed in Khojaly has been recognized and documented by numerous independent sources and eyewitnesses to the tragedy, and has even been admitted by Armenia's high-ranking officials and the country's public sources. This responsibility emanates from both general international law and, more particularly, from the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which both Armenia and Azerbaijan are parties.
"In its judgement of 22 April 2010, the European Court of Human Rights arrived at an important conclusion with respect to the crime committed in Khojaly, qualifying the behaviour of those carrying out the incursion as "acts of particular gravity which may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity", - the document says.
The letter says that the overall assessment of the causes and consequences of the war unleashed by Armenia against Azerbaijan makes it absolutely clear that the intentional slaughter of the civilians and defenders of Khojaly was not an isolated or sporadic act, but was part of Armenia's widespread and systematic policy and practice of atrocities, at the core of which are odious ideas of racial superiority, ethnic differentiation and hatred.
"The Government of Azerbaijan is confident that consistent measures being taken at the national level, as well as the existing legal framework of prosecution of and punishment for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community, will serve to end impunity for the crimes in Khojaly and other grave offences committed in the course of the aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan. It is important to ensure that the pursuit of offenders is undertaken through either the domestic legal systems of involved and third-party States or relevant international criminal institutions, as appropriate, and that State responsibility is enforced through existing inter-State mechanisms", the letter says.
Armenian military forces committed genocide in Khojaly on Feb. 26, 1992. Some 613 people were killed, including 63 children, 106 women and 70 old men. A total of 1,000 civilians were disabled during the genocide. Eight families were annihilated, 130 children lost one parent, and 25 lost both. Additionally, 1,275 peaceful residents were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 remains unknown.