BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 30. The former so-called "defense minister" of separatist regime in Karabakh Levon Mnatsakanyan has been charged under Article 113 (torture) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan, the press service of the country's Prosecutor General's Office told Trend.
According to the press service, substantial suspicions have been identified that Levon Mnatsakanyan, a former serviceman of Armenia, born in the Khojavand district of Azerbaijan in 1965, who served as the so-called " defense minister" of the so-called "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic" from 2015 to 2018 and was a member of an illegal Armenian armed formation on the territory of Azerbaijan, in collusion with a group of individuals, captured Ilham Mammadov and other Azerbaijanis in Alkhanli village of Azerbaijan's Fuzuli district, and engaged in cruel torture against them.
"On November 8, 2006, a decision was made to charge Mnatsakanyan under Article 113 (torture) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan, and on November 14 of the same year, he was put on the international wanted list through the National Central Bureau of Interpol with the measure of restraint in the form of detention," the press service said. "On September 29 of this year, Mnatsakanyan was detained by law enforcement agencies while attempting to cross the Lachin checkpoint in the direction of Armenia, and on the same day, he was charged under the mentioned article.
"Currently, necessary and urgent investigative and operational measures in the criminal cases are ongoing," the press service added.
Previously, Azerbaijani law enforcement agencies detained Ruben Vardanyan and David Babayan who were the so-called "state minister" and "foreign minister" of the separatist regime, accordingly.