Illegal 'state minister' - legitimate target Better to prevent crime than punish it

September 2, 2022. Khankendi. "Park Hotel" conference room. Press conference of the then-Russian businessman Ruben Vardanyan. There are still two months and two days before the Russian oligarch sits in the chair of the "state minister" of the separatist entity in the zone of temporary responsibility of the RPC.

"I renounced my Russian citizenship in order to come here and create a front for the security and development of Karabakh. We are in a crisis situation. For us, Armenians, the moment of ontological Sardarapat has come, and if we do not stand shoulder to shoulder, we will lose what is our support. Here I am a soldier and I am ready to devote my abilities, knowledge, and capabilities of Karabakh to the preservation and development of its independence," Vardanyan reasoned, sitting in front of local journalists with feigned cleverness.

However, despite the fact that the oligarch, who has a long story of scandals and accusations of laundering and funneling money overseas, emphasized in his speech the renunciation of Russian citizenship, nevertheless, Baku was not particularly impressed. Soon President Aliyev spoke out in a targeted way, making it clear that Azerbaijan knows everything and there is no point in playing games with us.

"We are ready to talk to Armenians living in Karabakh, but not with people sent by Moscow, such as Vardanyan, who have billions of money stolen from the Russian people. He was sent there from Moscow with a very clear agenda," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on November 17, receiving a delegation led by the European Union's Special Envoy for the Eastern Partnership Dirk Schubel.

Vardanyan's subsequent steps confirmed President Aliyev's words about the "clear agenda" of the Moscow "envoy" - to organise another criminal underground to destabilise the situation in the RPC's area of responsibility and provoke Azerbaijan. And that is why today we would like to elaborate upon the theme that we have already covered in our previous publications. Namely, the right to liquidate a terrorist oligarch who is going down the path of threatening Azerbaijani statehood. Moreover, we have plenty of newsbreaks for a new article. This is both the satisfaction of the Russian President with Ruben Vardanyan's statement about his renunciation of Russian citizenship, and a statement by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov at a meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart Bayramov that "Russia has nothing to do with the decision of Ruben Vardanyan to go to Karabakh and engage in political activities there," and, finally, yesterday's confirmation of the position of Baku from Bayramov himself that "the Azerbaijani side will never have contact with Ruben Vardanyan".

If Vardanyan is not a Russian citizen, he was not invited to the territory of Azerbaijan by any government agency of Azerbaijan, and no one in Baku authorized him to engage in "political activities", and the oligarch himself does not want to leave the internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan, on the contrary, he carries out there illegal actions against the sovereignty and security of the Azerbaijani state, publicly stating that "the war continues and we must be ready for battle", so there is only one solution - elimination.

I hasten to warn the indignation of some of our readers, who are ready to strongly accuse Caliber.Az editorial office of disrespect for the human right to life. We respect the right to life. But as they say, it is much better to prevent crimes than to punish them. Vardanyan is preparing for an armed confrontation, which will claim the lives of both Azerbaijanis and Armenians. Are we ready to see mothers of Azerbaijanis who have lost their sons in yet another war unleashed by Vardanyan? Isn`t it better to be proactive in this case, to eliminate Vardanyan?

Of course, we are not reinventing the wheel here - extrajudicial executions are quite common in the world. The most famous case of recent times is the murder of FSB lieutenant colonel Alexander Litvinenko in London. Many believe that Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium by his former colleagues at Lubyanka Street, saying that the agency had not forgiven him for betraying it (the famous Interfax news conference). But the Litvinenko case is not the only one. Israel, for example, is known for destroying terrorists all over the world, whose hands are wet with the blood of Israelis. Extrajudicial punishment is also ordered when it becomes known that terrorist acts are being plotted or prepared against Israel and the Israelis. It is better to wipe out a couple or three terrorists and their masterminds beforehand than to mourn the deaths of the victims of a terrorist attack.

By the way, Armenia's "sister" France is also involved in extrajudicial executions. In 2017, a scandal broke out there concerning President François Hollande's order to eliminate terrorists in North Africa, Syria, and Iraq. It turned out that the French intelligence services had quite a few candidates in their crosshairs for elimination. According to media reports, President François Hollande supported the idea of neutralising Islamists who hold important positions in IS and pose a threat to French national security. In just five years in power, Hollande sanctioned around 40 assassinations. In particular, Direction Générale De La Sécurité Extérieure (General Board of External Security) fighters eliminated almost all those involved in the kidnapping and execution of two French journalists of Radio France International (RFI) in Kidal (Mali) in 2013.

What about the US Operation Neptune Spear, ordered by President Obama, which resulted in the killing of bin Laden in Pakistan? And Operation Flavius, conducted by British intelligence in Gibraltar in the spring of 1988, when agents shot and killed three IRA fighters? Years later it became known that Prime Minister Thatcher personally gave the order to agents to destroy the terrorists.

That is to say, even the most democratic states sometimes resort to such punishment as extrajudicial execution when it comes to individuals who pose a threat to national security. Sometimes this method is the most effective way to fight terrorism. In Ruben Vardanyan's case, the conclusion is obvious. If he is not ready to leave or obey Azerbaijan's legitimate demands, he must be prepared for such a development. Azerbaijani power structures have a wealth of methods and tools to achieve that. As the saying goes, where they catch him, they will flush him, including in the toilet. But this is from the lexicon of an entirely different person...