01/14/2026
BREAKING: Four Armenian Prisoners Return from Azerbaijan In Exchange For Two Syrian Mercenaries Who Fought for Azerbaijan in 2020
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Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that four captives held in Baku have been returned to Armenia on Wednesday.
“Gevorg Sujyan, Davit Davtyan, Vicken Euljekjian and Vagif Khachatryan were handed over on the Hakari bridge and are now in Armenia. I will provide more information later,” he wrote on Facebook.
Pashinyan later informed that preliminary medical examinations showed that Sujyan, Davtyan, and Euljekjian have no health issues, while Khachatryan’s condition has been assessed as satisfactory, and all four are being transported to Yerevan.
The National Security Service of Armenia stated that the operation was carried out as a practical outcome of the peace process established between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
According to official data, 19 more Armenian prisoners are currently being held in Azerbaijan.
Gevorg Sujyan and his friend Davit Davtyan were captured on the Berdzor–Shushi road in November 2020, shortly after the end of the 44-Day War between Armenia and Azerbaijan. During the war, Sujyan, the founding president of the “New Armenia Homeland–Diaspora” charitable NGO, together with his friends, had been transporting humanitarian aid to Artsakh.
In July 2021, the Baku Serious Crimes Court had sentenced both men to 15 years in prison.
Vicken Euljekjian, a Lebanese-born Armenian who moved to Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and worked as a taxi driver there, was captured along with Lebanese-Armenian national Maral Najarian on November 10, 2020, hours after the Russian-brokered ceasefire ended the six-week conflict.
They were detained by Azerbaijani forces outside the Artsakh town of Shushi while he was collecting his personal belongings to leave Artsakh.
He was sentenced to 20 years in June 2021 following what Armenia and human rights groups described as a politically motivated sham trial.
Euljekjian’s wife had been urging for his release since November 2025, citing concerns over his deteriorating health while in detention in Baku.
Vagif Khachatryan was abducted by Azerbaijani security forces in late July 2023 at their checkpoint on the Hakari Bridge. He had been traveling to Yerevan by car, accompanied by the Red Cross, on doctors’ orders for urgent heart surgery.
On the same day, Baku claimed that he had long been wanted as a perpetrator of genocide in the village of Meshali.
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Justice of Armenia reported that two citizens of the Syrian Arab Republic, Youssef Alaabet al-Hajji and Muharrab Muhammad al-Shukri, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment in Armenia, were transferred to the competent authorities of Syria via Turkey to continue serving their sentences in their country of citizenship. The transfer was carried out under the cooperation of the relevant authorities and in accordance with applicable legal mechanisms.
Muharrab Muhammad al-Shukheri was arrested on October 1, 2020, during the 44-Day War, within the framework of a criminal case being investigated by the Republic of Armenia Investigative Committee.
Yousef Alaabet al-Hajj was arrested on November 1, 2020. During the military operations, he had been captured by Artsakh Defense Army units.
According to law enforcement authorities, mercenaries were offered $2,000 to participate in the military operations. Public calls were made, urging not to spare anyone’s life, to behead all Armenians, and to kill them; moreover, they were promised a bounty of $100 for each Armenian.
Although the Ministry did not explicitly call it a swap, the move is widely interpreted as part of an exchange.
