A Letter from Veronika Zonabend, Wife of Ruben Vardanyan, to ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger on the Legal Status of Armenian Prisoners in Azerbaijan

The families of Armenian prisoners in Azerbaijan have been unable to see their loved ones for more than two years. They are deeply concerned about the detainees’ state of health. The last to have had independent access to them were representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross — the only organization that visited them at their places of detention. However, at the demand of the Government of Azerbaijan, the ICRC was compelled to terminate its operations in the country on 3 September 2025.

In these circumstances, the question of the detainees’ legal status — as understood within the framework of international humanitarian law — acquires particular significance. It is with this request that Veronika Zonabend addressed ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger.

We are publishing this letter and reiterating the request it contains: we ask the ICRC to clarify the specific legal status under which Armenian detainees were visited by the organization’s representatives, and to consider responding to this question.

“Dear President Spoljaric,

I am writing to you on behalf of my husband, Ruben Vardanyan, an Armenian citizen, philanthropist, and former State Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh, who was illegally detained by the Azerbaijani authorities on 27 September 2023 while attempting to leave Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia.

I would like to express my sincere appreciation for the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross. ICRC’s role and mandate are truly unique and unparalleled. In times of cruelty, war, and injustice, the ICRC remains a rare symbol of dignity, compassion, and humanity with the noble mission of protecting the vulnerable. The ICRC is one of the few international organizations in which team members have not lost their sense of mission and continue to approach their work with humanity and care. We deeply appreciate the ICRC delegates’ visits to Ruben at his place of detention in Azerbaijan. For our family, and I am sure for the families of other detained Armenians, your visits mean far more than a formal procedure.

I write with full understanding of the ICRC’s humanitarian mandate, as well as its long-established principles of confidentiality, impartiality, and neutrality. At the same time, for the families of individuals who remain unlawfully detained, it is of profound importance to receive an impartial and professionally grounded understanding of the detainees’ legal status in Azerbaijan at the time of the ICRC delegates’ visits.

This need for clarity is rendered all the more urgent in light of the manifestly deficient judicial proceedings in Azerbaijan, including trials that lack fundamental guarantees and charges that appear devoid of factual and legal basis. The suffering inflicted on the families of the detainees as a result of their unlawful detention and the conduct of proceedings that lack fundamental fairness is further aggravated by the dissemination of misleading information and the deliberate misrepresentation of the detainees’ status by the Azerbaijani authorities, who publicly and repeatedly label them as “terrorists.”

In this context, I respectfully ask for clarification of the specific legal status under which Ruben and other Armenian detainees were visited by ICRC delegates. In particular, we seek to understand whether they were considered by the ICRC as persons deprived of liberty in relation to an armed conflict, and as such whether they were prisoners of war, security detainees, internees, or have another status under applicable rules of international humanitarian law.

Such clarification would be of exceptional value. It would provide much-needed reassurance to families and contribute meaningfully to an objective understanding of how the detainees are regarded under international humanitarian law and the ICRC’s humanitarian visiting standards.

Allow me to conclude by expressing sincere gratitude for the humanity and dignity the ICRC brings to its work, qualities that remain indispensable in a world where they are too often in short supply.

Finally, I address you not only in your official capacity, but also with a deeply personal appeal to the organization whose mission has always been to place the protection of human life, dignity, and justice above formalities and political considerations. For families like ours, who are living through the anguish of prolonged and unlawful detention of our loved ones, this belief in the ICRC’s humanitarian conscience is a source of hope. I sincerely trust that this same spirit will guide your attention to the situation of Ruben and other Armenian detainees.

Yours sincerely,

Veronika Zonabend”