Saribekyan and Balyan v. Azerbaijan

Yonko Grozev, Ganna Yudkivska, Síofra O’Leary, Mārtiņš Mits, Latif Huseynov, Saribekyan and Balyan v. Azerbaijan was an international human rights case filed by the parents of Manvel Saribekyan - an Armenian national from the Ttujur village in the Gegharkunik province of Armenia, who died while in captivity in Azerbaijan in 2010.

On January 30, 2020, the Court ruled that Azerbaijan had violated Articles 2 and 3 of the Conversion (the right to life and the prohibition of torture), in the case of Manvel Saribekyan.

[2] The following day the Azerbaijani authorities released a video of an interrogation in which Saribekyan confessed to being a member of a sabotage group, which, after crossing the border of Azerbaijan, had intended to blow up a school in Zamanli village.

[3] In response, the Armenian Defense Ministry released a statement questioning the methods used by Azerbaijani authorities to obtain the confession, pointing to traces of torture seen on Saribekyan in the video.

[11] Mamikon Saribekyan and Siranush Balyan filed a complaint with ECHR on 10 June 2011, in which they submitted that their son was tortured and killed while in detention in Azerbaijan, which violated Articles 2, 3, 13, 14 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.