Nagorno-Karabakh escaped Baku's control in fighting around the time of the Soviet collapse when hundreds of thousands of ethnic Azeris fled their homes. Baku casts Vardanyan and other former separatist officials as leaders of an illegal armed entity who tried to stop Azerbaijan from reclaiming the territory.

Ex-Moscow investment banker Ruben Vardanyan and 15 other Armenian leaders of the formerly contested Nagorno-Karabakh region went on trial in Azerbaijan on Friday.

Armenia’s government pointedly declined to react on Friday to the start of the trials in Azerbaijan of eight former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh and eight other Karabakh Armenian prisoners which human rights activists in Yerevan condemned as a travesty of justice.