Azerbaijan, Baku, 23 September / Trend corr. N.Abdullayeva / The Refugees and IDP (internally displaced persons) Rights Protection Centre of Azerbaijan demands the public tribunal on Khojali.
"We should achieve a tribunal on Khojali," Tatyana Chaladze, the chairman of the Refugees and IDP Rights Protection Centre of Azerbaijan, said at a news conference on 22 September.
Bloody tragedy was committed in Khojali, a city of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, on 26 February 1992 by the Armenian Armed Forces. As a result, 613 unarmed Azerbaijani citizens, including 106 women and 83 children, were brutally killed, 487 people, including 76 juveniles were physically disabled and 1,275 people were taken prisoner. Despite release of most of the prisoners of war, the fate of 150 people is still unknown.
The Centre developed a project on Independent Public Tribunal on Khojali to hold juridical procedure on responsible people for realization of the Khojali tragedy and to shoot a documental film on results of the tribunal.
A list of the accused people at the juridical procedure, which is scheduled for 26 February, will include names of Armenian President Serzh Sargisyan, Armenian ex-presidents Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Robert Kocharyan, ex-president of the self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Arkadi Gukasyan and other persons, who have ingenuous relations to mass annihilation of civil residents of Khojali city. Official notification will be sent to the people mentioned in the list on holding the Independent Public Tribunal on Khojali. Invitations will be sent to them to participate or send their authorized representatives, who will protect their interest in the legal hearings with this purpose, Chaladze said.
About 12 juridical specialists of different countries, who will assess the procedure, will be invited to the juridical meeting.
The conflict between the two countries of the South Caucasus began in 1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since 1992, Armenian Armed Forces have occupied 20% of Azerbaijan including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven surrounding districts. In 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which time the active hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group ( Russia, France, and the United States) are currently holding fruitless peaceful negotiations.
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