An Armenian court has ordered Azerbaijani serviceman Nasimi Rahim oghlu Musayev held in pretrial detention for 2 months over the shooting of a woman inside her home in Shaki, Investigative Committee spokesperson Kima Avdalyan told Armenpress.
He faces 5 charges: illegally crossing Armenia’s state border, smuggling military-use products, firearms and ammunition, illegal trafficking in firearms and ammunition, illegal entry into another person’s residence against their will, and causing grievous bodily harm under aggravating circumstances, including with a firearm.
Two of those charges were added on Friday. When the Prosecutor General’s Office announced the case on Thursday, it listed causing grievous bodily harm with a weapon, illegal carrying of a firearm and violating the inviolability of a dwelling. Illegal border crossing was not among them, despite Azerbaijan itself saying the serviceman had crossed into Armenia. Prosecutors opened a separate proceeding on Friday covering the border crossing and firearms smuggling and merged it into the main case.
Musayev crossed into Armenia illegally and broke into a home in the Shaki settlement of Syunik Province on Thursday, opening fire after he was discovered. The homeowner, a 39-year-old woman, was shot in the leg in front of her 3 children. He fled and was found at another address in Shaki.
Two of the children were injured. Armenpress reported that they are 15 and 12, that they sustained a fractured right wrist and a soft-tissue contusion, and that their condition is satisfactory.
The woman was treated at the Sisian Medical Center and transferred to Yerevan. Health Minister Anahit Avanesyan said Friday that her condition is stable, that she is receiving appropriate care and that there is no threat to her life. The children received psychological and medical assistance.
Azerbaijan’s State Security Service notified Armenia’s National Security Service on September 29 that a serviceman had left his unit under unknown circumstances and that it could not rule out his having crossed into Armenia. Search operations began in both countries. The shooting came 2 days later.
Shaki sits less than 20 kilometers from the nearest stretch of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Armenian authorities have not said where he crossed, how he reached a village while search operations were under way, or whether residents were warned that an armed Azerbaijani serviceman might be inside the country. Shaki residents told Armenian outlets they believed he had been across the border for 4 or 5 days before the attack.
The youth wing of the ARF protested outside the National Security Service building in Yerevan on Friday, demanding that Musayev not be handed over without preconditions and that he be exchanged for Armenians held in Azerbaijan. Garnik Danielyan, a member of the ARF Supreme Body and a former member of parliament, asked at the protest why the National Security Service had not warned residents of border villages so they could defend themselves.
Narek Karapetyan, who heads the Strong Armenia faction, raised the case at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on Friday, abandoning his prepared remarks on healthcare to do it. He told the assembly that an armed Azerbaijani soldier had crossed into Armenia and shot a mother in front of her children, and that Azerbaijani soldiers act with such confidence because they face no punishment.
He pointed to Ramil Safarov, who killed Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan with 16 axe blows while he slept during a NATO Partnership for Peace course in Budapest in February 2004. Hungary sentenced him to life and then extradited him on August 31, 2012. Aliyev pardoned him the same day, promoted him from lieutenant to major, gave him an apartment and 8 years of back pay, and crowds met him in the streets. Armenia severed diplomatic relations with Hungary over it, and Safarov has been promoted again since. By returning him, Karapetyan said, an EU member state gave a green light to this behavior. He called on the European community not to remain a spectator and said perpetrators of violence must never be glorified.
Azerbaijan unlawfully holds 19 Armenians, 16 of whom have been sentenced. Eight are former Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) officials, among them 3 former presidents, Arayik Harutyunyan, Bako Sahakyan and Arkadi Ghukasyan, along with former State Minister Ruben Vardanyan, Speaker Davit Ishkhanyan and former Foreign Minister Davit Babayan. Amnesty International called the verdicts a travesty and a mockery of justice.
Pashinyan told the UN General Assembly on September 24, a week before the shooting, that Armenia and Azerbaijan had established peace. In the same speech he said Armenians are waiting for the return of the prisoners still held in Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced Thursday evening that it had opened its own criminal case over the serviceman’s illegal entry into Armenia. Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry has made no statement.
Shaki lies in Syunik, the sovereign Armenian province through which Azerbaijan has demanded a land link to its Nakhichevan exclave for decades. Azerbaijani forces have held positions on sovereign Armenian territory in Syunik and Gegharkunik since May 2021.
