May 13, 1993  _Five Russian soldiers sentenced to death in Azerbaijan_
 
MOSCOW (UPI) -- Five soldiers who served in Russia's 7th army stationed in
Armenia were sentenced to death in the Azerbaijani capital Baku Thursday for
allegedly "carrying out diversions and killing 30 Azeri soldiers." 

A statement released by the news service of Azeri President Abulfaz Elchibey
said "the sentence was final and was not subject to protest or appeal," the 
Russian state news agency Itar-tass reported. 

But the Russian Foreign Ministry issued an appeal for the men to be handed
over to the authorities in Moscow for punishment. 

"This would accord with modern standards of humanity towards those who have
committed crimes," the statement reads. 

The five men, together with another soldier who received a 15-year prison
sentence, were captured in September 1992 by Azeri police in the Kelbadzhar
district of Azerbaijan, between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. 

The Supreme Court in Baku said the men had gone through special training in a
company of the Russian 7th army in the Armenian capital Yerevan, after which
they were sent across the Armenian-Azeri border into Nagorno-Karabakh to 
carry out diversions against Azeri troops. 

However, the Russian Foreign Ministry statement claimed they had deserted the
Russian army and were fighting as mercenaries with Armenian armed forces in
the battle zone round Karabakh. 

Nagorno-Karabakh is an Armenian-populated enclave within Azerbaijan which for
five years has been fighting for independence from Baku in a war that has
left many thousands dead and uprooted hundreds of thousands from their homes. 

Both Yerevan and Baku have always claimed that Russian servicemen stationed
in these Caucasian republics, who were left behind after the break-up of the 
Soviet Union, are fighting as mercenaries in the Karabakh war. 

The statement from Moscow said the Russian side repeatedly appealed to the
Azerbaijani government to show humanity and leniency in their treatment of the
six men, and to hand them over to the Russian authorities. 

It said that President Boris Yeltsin himself sent a letter with this request 
to his Azeri counterpart Elchibey. Itar-tass said that the soldiers' defense
attorneys had lodged an appeal for clemency. 
 
 
