Azerbaijani leader: We returned all persons detained during war immediately after war ended

“With respect to the so-called prisoners of war, I want to clarify this issue for your audience. I have on many occasions referred to international law norms, international conventions, about who can be considered prisoners of war? And according to international conventions those persons who have been detained or captured during the phase of war and those persons whom we detained during the war all of them have been returned immediately after the war ended,” President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with the Spanish EFE news agency, Report informs.

“We actually returned them earlier than Armenians returned our prisoners. Those people who are now in detention and already sentenced whom Armenia and some others claim as prisoners of war do not belong to this category because these people have been sent to liberated territories in the end of November. More than two weeks after the war ended, more than two weeks after Armenia signed a capitulation act and they have been detained on the territory which we liberated in the beginning of December. 62 persons and some of them committed crimes, they attacked our military servicemen and killed four of them. So, they are not prisoners of war. They are terrorists, they are members of a sabotage group who’ve been sent in order to attack Azerbaijani civilians and military servicemen. Despite of that, we have returned some of them during this period, and that was a sign of good will,” president said.