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"The convictions of Armenian prisoners in Azerbaijan are an artificial result of artificial processes," Armenia's Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan said in a statement on Saturday, commenting on recent verdicts of Baku court on Armenian prisoners who had been sentenced to imprisonment. 

Tatoyan noted that every trial organised by Azerbaijani leadership is accompanied in the local media by publications violating their rights and degrading their dignity, fulled by discussions and calls to kill and torture them  - all of which  recorded. 

"It is obvious that these trials are just a veil for the external audience and serve a justification not to release the prisoners seeking more  military-political gains. The monitoring revealed that in reality there is an ongoing political bargaining and people's trade as proved by an irrefutable evidence of the video from conversation between Azerbaijani president and Turkey's first lady ," said the Ombudsman. 

In his words, the complaints and alarms received from the family members of the captives and those missing in action show  that these attitudes and publications are aimed at causing additional mental suffering to the families of POWs. Any so-called prosecution or trial of prisoners of war (POWs), per Tatoyan, is a gross violation of international law and goes against  international human rights laws, including the 1949 Third Geneva Convention.

"All existing facts and the behavior of Azerbaijani authorities is an open ignorance to the whole international community, distorts the system of international humanitarian law which has been developed for decades. All captives must be immediately released and returned without any preconditions," the Ombudsman concluded.