BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 23
By Samir Ali - Trend:
Armenian Ludwig Mkrtychyan tortured and beat me by a machine gun, former Azerbaijani captive Elman Hajiyev said in Baku while giving testimony at the court session on the criminal case of Armenian servicemen Ludwig Mkrtychyan and Alyosha Khosrovyan, who tortured Azerbaijani captives during the first Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh war, Trend reports.
Hajiyev said that he volunteered for the first Karabakh war in 1992, and was surrounded and captured on September 26, 1993.
"I was repeatedly tortured by Mkrtychyan,” Hajiyev said. “After being captured, I was beaten and lost consciousness. When I woke up, I saw that I was in Agdere. My hands were chained. I ate only sauerkraut for two days."
“The chain was not removed because they feared that I could escape,” Hajiyev said. “Then I was taken to Shusha prison and two months later - to Khojavend. We were forced to work at a construction site in Khojavend. There was a farm in Khojavend and feed for livestock was brought there in the evenings.”
“We started to unload it,” Hajiyev said. “Mkrtychyan and several other drunk people began to beat us by using machine guns. I told Mkrtychyan that one day we will meet and I will take revenge. He did not like this and began to beat me by using a machine gun and fittings. He broke my nose. I was thrown into the mud and for a while I saw nothing because of the dirt in my eyes.”
“Then they put me in a UAZ car and took me to the Shusha prison,” Hajiyev said. “During my captivity, we were forced to construct the house of the brother of so-called "defense minister" of the separatist regime, Samvel Babayan. The houses of Azerbaijanis were destroyed in Fuzuli and Aghdam districts. We built two pig farms, a poultry farm and a grain warehouse in Khojavend.”
“All this belonged to Samvel Babayan's brother,” Hajiyev said.
“The torture ruined my health and every year I treat my kidneys,” Hajiyev said. “When representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross visited us in Shusha prison, we were told to praise the Armenians and the conditions of detention, otherwise they would torture us in the evening."