"International lawyers see strong and fair position of Azerbaijan"

As reported, the world's leading international lawyers from Britain have submitted a report on war crimes committed during the 44-day Karabakh war. At the initiative of Farhad Mirzayev, head of the international law firm BM Morrison Partners, a well-known Azerbaijani international lawyer, and with the support of the Azerbaijan Bar Association, a group led by Steven Kay, a prominent international criminal lawyer and member of the Bedford Row Chamber of Deputies, prepare and presented the report to the world community.

E-huquq.az reports that, Farhad Mirzayev, commenting on the report spoke about how the project came about : "It was my personal initiative. I was in London during the war and, of course, as every Azerbaijani, I watched the process with great excitement, watching Azerbaijani channels. When Ganja was shot for the second time, I could not remain indifferent to it. It affected me a lot. I saw that big powers and international organizations do not react to it. I thought that this should be given a legal opinion by the world's leading experts.As you know, London is a place of international law, school research centers, leading experts.Therefore, I found professionals in this field, and they agreed with great pleasure.

If there are one or two experts in the world, one of them is Steven Kay.He has been involved in similar war crimes in Yugoslavia, Kosovo and elsewhere. Therefore, he is a very valuable specialist. With the support of the Bar Association, we visited Azerbaijan five days after the end of the war. They came and saw everything themselves. There are Azerbaijanis, the Ombudsman, Azerbaijani non-governmental organizations to write about it, and there are foreign experts who come and write independently without any coercion. We didn't approach them, they came and took pictures. They even met with the victims and looked at the graves. They saw for themselves that strong and fair position of Azerbaijan. Based on it, they wrote this report."

The lawyer noted that the report was met with great concern in Armenia: " Were it not for the influence, the Armenians would not be so excited. They claim that we allegedly organized the preparation of this report by the Azerbaijani government or some other means. But everyone in the UK knows that this source of funding comes from my company. The state has provided neither financial nor technical support. I think that if Azerbaijan, as a state, wants to take any steps in the future, of course, the role of such reports is very important as evidence."

Mirzayev said that the issue of compensation for the crimes committed by Armenia is a bit complicated: "The problem is that there are no mechanisms. For this, there must be resolutions of the UN Security Council. As you know, many countries in the Security Council, France, Russia, the United States and others support Armenia. It is very difficult to bring Armenia to justice as a state. It can establish independent criminal tribunals in Azerbaijan and involve independent experts from abroad. If those tribunals make a decision, it can at least be presented to the world community".

It should be noted that the report assesses the attacks on civilians in various cities of Azerbaijan, including the second largest city, Ganja, from the point of view of international law. The report assesses the attacks, which killed about 100 civilians during the period, as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 100-page report is based on visits to Azerbaijan and the cities and settlements affected by the attack, and is based on an examination of facts, evidence and documents, and covers relevant aspects of international criminal and humanitarian law. The report also provides a legal assessment of the actions committed by the Armenian armed forces in the Fizuli region during the occupation, and classifies them as intentional war crimes.