Epress.am News from Armenia
At 3 am on Oct. 5, Armenian prisoner Manvel Saribekyan died in Azerbaijan. According to Azerbaijani media, the young man killed himself while in custody.
However, according to sources close to the RA armed forces, Azerbaijan soldiers either killed Saribekyan or provoked him to commit suicide so that they could begin negotiations in the return of body of Mubariz Ibrahimov, who was shot dead by Armenian soldiers earlier this year. Ibrahimov has since been declared a National Hero of Azerbaijan by the country’s president.
At the end of September, Pascale Meige Wagner, the head of operations of Eastern Europe and Central Asia of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), an organization in which Saribekyan was involved, came to Armenia and Azerbaijan on an official visit, where she met with the defense ministers and deputy foreign minister of both countries.
“The situation in the region remains a concern for the ICRC,” she said during her visit, according to the ICRC press release.
“We wanted to explain our role as a neutral intermediary in repatriations of prisoners of war, civilian internees and human remains,” said Ms. Meige Wagner.
Speaking with Epress.am, Ministry of Defense press spokesperson Mushegh Aghekyan noted that there is currently not official response concerning the incident.
Editor’s Note: at 6:46 pm on Oct. 6, 2010, the name “Samvel Saribekyan” was corrected to “Manvel Saribekyan.”