According to Vardanyan’s family in Armenia, he read out the statement to his elder son David in a phone call on Wednesday.
“The proceedings taking place in Baku do not meet the basic standards of a fair trial and therefore cannot be regarded as a court in the true sense of the word,” he said.
“I regret nothing. All my actions were taken consciously and voluntarily, fully understanding the possible consequences. I am ready to answer for my actions before God. The only thing I regret is that I was not able to do more.”
“I reaffirm: Artsakh was, is, and will be -- regardless of attempts to rewrite history or impose an alternative interpretation of events,” added the statement circulated by the family on Thursday.
It came as Azerbaijani prosecutors demanded that Vardanyan be sentenced to life in prison. They earlier also demanded life sentences for most of the seven other former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh standing a separate trial in Baku. Like Vardanyan, the latter were captured by Azerbaijan during or shortly after its September 2023 military offensive that forced Karabakh’s entire population to flee to Armenia and restored Azerbaijani control over the region. All of the defendants deny a long list of accusations levelled against them.
Vardanyan, who held the second-highest post in Karabakh’s leadership from November 2022 to February 2023, was arrested at an Azerbaijani checkpoint in the Lachin corridor during the exodus. He stands accused, among other things, of “financing terrorism,” illegally entering Karabakh and supplying its armed forces with military equipment.
In his latest statement, he 56-year-old tycoon, who had made his fortune in Russia, also urged Armenians to “not fear death.”
“It is not death that is frightening,” he said. “What is truly frightening is indifference -- a state that enters us quietly and gradually, like radiation, and destroys us from within.”
The Armenian government is accused by its domestic critics of doing little to try to secure the release of these and 15 Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan. It denies the accusations that were echoed by Vardanyan’s American lawyer, Jared Genser, earlier this year.
In a June interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, Genser pointed out that a draft Armenian-Azerbaijan peace treaty finalized in March does not address the fate of the prisoners and instead commits the two sides to withdrawing their international lawsuits filed against each other.