(MENAFN- Trend News Agency ) Details added (first version posted on 12:47)
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 8
Trend:
Lebanese citizen Viken Eulcekcian was offered $2,000-2,500 to participate in hostilities against Azerbaijan.
Trend reports referring to the video footage, which Maral Nazaryan gave to the investigative bodies at a court session on June 8.
Lebanese citizen Viken Eulcekcian lived illegally with Maral Nazaryan.
Nazaryan also said that the accused had fought against Azerbaijanis in the Nagorno-Karabakh region for money.
''We arrived with Eulcekcian from Beirut to Armenia,'' Nazaryan said. ''Later we were accommodated in a hotel in Shusha. In those days, he spoke on the phone with a Lebanese citizen named Hovak, who offered him $2,000-2,500 and a salary for his participation in the hostilities. Viken agreed.''
''I told him that he is not a citizen of Armenia and that this will create problems for us in the future because we wanted to return to Lebanon, but could not do this because of the COVID-19 pandemic,'' Nazaryan said. Before the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, we wanted to go to Lebanon, but Viken was not allowed to cross the border because his documents were incorrectly formalized. I left for Lebanon and after a while was forced to return to Armenia.''
''After the outbreak of hostilities, Viken left to fight, then returned three or four days later, said that the Azerbaijanis are very strong, all the mercenaries were killed, and he managed to escape,'' Nazaryan added. ''Then we arrived in Lachin. On November 10, we heard that the war was over. When we came to pick up our things from the hotel in Shusha, we were detained by the Azerbaijani military. This happened after they saw the photos on Viken's phone.''
The accused initially disagreed with Nazaryan's testimony. But he was shown photographs and video recordings on which he was in the trenches. Afterward, he agreed with the testimony of Nazaryan, stating that he had allegedly just photographed in the trenches, but did not fight.
Viken Eulcekcian was earlier brought to the investigation on charges of terrorist activities against the citizens of Azerbaijan as part of the Armed Forces of Armenia during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Thus, a criminal investigation opened under the relevant articles of the Criminal Code at the Investigation Department of the State Security Service of Azerbaijan on the facts of participation of Lebanese citizen Viken Eulcekcian and others in the form of an organized group as mercenaries as part of the Armenian Armed Forces against Azerbaijani citizens in exchange for material reward, has been completed.
The investigation revealed that Eulcekcian, born in 1979, a citizen of Lebanon, a resident of Beirut, initially accepted the offer on September 29, 2020, to take part in military operations as a mercenary in the de-occupied territories of Azerbaijan in exchange for $2,500.
For this purpose, on the same day, in an organized group, he deliberately crossed the protected state border of Azerbaijan from the territory of Armenia outside the checkpoints and arrived in the territories where other mercenaries were.
Viken Eulcekcian and other mercenaries also took part in terrorist activities against citizens and the army of Azerbaijan, using firearms, ammunition, and spare parts illegally obtained as a result of the persecution of armed groups, not provided for by the legislation of Azerbaijan.
By the decision of the court, Viken Eulcekcian was charged under Article 114.3 of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan (participation of a mercenary in a military conflict or military operation), Article 214.2.1 of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan (terrorism by a group of persons, organized group or criminal organization), 318.2 (illegal crossing of the state border of Azerbaijan).
A measure of restraint - arrest was chosen upon the court decision.
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