BAKU. July 7 (Interfax) - The Sumgait Court on Grave Crimes has convicted two Armenian citizens of trespassing the Azerbaijani border with a group of saboteurs in May 2023, Azerbaijani media said on Friday.
The court chaired by Judge Fahmina Gumbatova sentenced Arutyun Ovagimyan and Karen Kazaryan to 11 years and six months each.
On May 26, the investigative department of the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case against Ovagimyan and Kazaryan on counts of border trespassing and attack on a serviceman of the Zangilan border detail of the Azerbaijani State Border Service.
They were charged with a conspiracy to smuggle firearms and ammunition, an armed terrorism conspiracy, a conspiracy to illegally procure, transport and possess firearms, incitement to ethnic, radical, social or religious enmity by violence or a threat to use violence, and a conspiracy to cross the Azerbaijani border by violence or a threat to use violence.
The criminal case of Ovagimyan and Kazaryan was forwarded to the Sumgait Court on Grave Crimes on June 21.
Meanwhile, the Armenian Investigative Committee reported the abduction of two Armenian servicemen.
"Servicemen Arutyun Ovagimyan and Karen Kazaryan were sent to deliver food to a position in the northeastern sector [of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border] by a Kamaz truck at 6:30 p.m. on May 26. Contact with them was lost on their way back from the position. The search found the truck with the engine running and an AK-74 rifle inside. According to the preliminary information, an armed group of the enemy crossed the Armenian border and abducted two servicemen," the Armenian Investigative Committee press service said.
Criminal cases were opened on counts of border trespassing by the Azerbaijani military and abduction of servicemen.