The soldier identified as Nasimi Musayev was captured on Thursday in the Syunik village of Shaki where he seriously injured a woman, Ani Avetisian, and two of her children inside their house. Avetisian’s sister Arpi recounted more details of the violent incident in an interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
She said the teenage children were the first to spot Musayev hiding in their house when they returned from school early in the afternoon. One of them was talking to her mother over the phone at that point and managed to alert her about the intrusion.
According to Arpi Avetisian, Musayev held them at the gunpoint when her sister rushed to the house and tried to pull away his assault rifle before being shot in the foot and hand. The wounded woman managed to grab a kitchen knife and stab Musayev, she said, adding that the Azerbaijani then knocked her unconscious while wrestling with her and her 15-year-old son.
The bleeding intruder then fled the house. The village chief, Ruben Manucharian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that he was “exhausted from blood loss” when police and local residents caught him shortly afterwards.
Ani Avetisian and her son were hospitalized with serious injuries. According to her sister, the 39-year-old woman lost three fingers while the boy suffered a broken wrist.
Azerbaijani authorities said later on Thursday that Musayev deserted an Azerbaijani military base in the Lachin district sandwiched between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh on September 26. Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) claimed to have been notified by them about his disappearance on September 29. Critics decried the NSS’s and other security agencies’ failure to issue security alerts to residents of local Armenian communities.
Musayev was initially accused of grave armed assault, trespassing and illegal arms trafficking. Armenian prosecutors also charged him with illegal border crossing on Friday following an uproar from opposition and public figures fearing that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian could free and repatriate the soldier in line with his appeasement policy towards Azerbaijan. Musayev was formally remanded in pretrial custody later in the day.
Shaki is located about 20 kilometers from the nearest sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Armenian opposition leaders challenged the authorities in Yerevan to explain how the Azerbaijani soldier managed to cross the militarized border and advance deep into Armenian territory. They portrayed the incident as a serious security breach highlighting what they see as Pashinian’s continuing failure to secure the country’s long border with Azerbaijan.
“If one person managed to cross the border, who says that an entire battalion can't do it?” Artur Khachatrian, a parliament deputy from the opposition Hayastan alliance, told reporters on Friday.
“This suggests that there are vulnerable sections along the border,” said Garnik Davtian of the opposition strong Armenia bloc. “Perhaps that is precisely what the Azerbaijani soldier was trying to determine. I suspect he entered Armenia for the purpose of reconnaissance.”
Volodya Hakobian, a senior lawmaker representing the ruling Civil Contract party, acknowledged security failings by Armenian authorities while dismissing the opposition criticism as exaggerated. He insisted that it is “impossible to completely avoid violations of the border.”
“It is evident that relevant authorities failed to perform their duties properly, given that an Azerbaijani soldier ended up in the home of one of our citizens … But I do not want to express an expert opinion, which is what the opposition is doing right now.” said Hakobian.