Armenia’s Prosecutor General’s Office gave the timeline on Thursday night. At about 14:00 Nasimi Musaev, a citizen of Azerbaijan and a serviceman, entered house 20 on 6th Street in Shaki, a village in the Sisian community, and opened fire when he was discovered. A woman born in 1987 was wounded, he fled, and he was found in house 26 on the same street and detained at 15:30.
The Sisian investigative department opened proceedings under 3 articles of Armenia’s Criminal Code: point 6 of part 2 of article 166, grave harm to health inflicted with a weapon; part 1 of article 335, the illegal carrying of a firearm, which carries up to 5 years in prison; and part 1 of article 207, unlawful entry into a dwelling, which carries up to 2 years.
A woman born in 1987 was wounded, he fled, and he was found in house 26 on the same street and detained at 15:30.
What is alleged is the entry and the shot, and no article covers the border crossing. Armenia’s statement gives no penalty range for article 166.
The woman was treated in Sisian and moved to Yerevan, the office said. She is out of danger. Her two children, born in 2011 and 2014, were found to have injuries the same day, a bruise on one and a fractured right hand on the other, the office said, without saying how they were hurt.
Baku’s statement is stamped 19:13 Baku time. Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s Office said Musaev, a conscript in a unit in the Lachin district, left his post on 26 September without saying where he was going, that the defence and emergencies ministries searched for him, and that the Military Prosecutor’s Office has opened a criminal case over his leaving the unit without permission. State bodies “are maintaining contacts with the Armenian side” to establish the circumstances of his detention, it said, and promised the results of its investigation later.
Both agree on the prelude. Armenia’s office says Azerbaijan’s State Security Service told Armenia’s National Security Service on 29 September that a serviceman had left his unit in unknown circumstances and might have crossed the border, and that both countries then searched for him. Neither statement says where or how he crossed, and neither says whether he was armed when he left.
The incident comes as the TRIPP framework agreement moves towards ratification in Armenia’s National Assembly, a process the government has opened, and a week after the two foreign ministers agreed in New York to continue direct dialogue. Opposition deputies in Yerevan said on Thursday evening that Musaev must not be handed to Baku “as a gesture of goodwill”. Neither Armenpress nor News.am had carried any government word on his fate by midnight.
Yerevan says it has passed the details of the incident to the Azerbaijani side. Baku says the two sides are in contact and that its own investigation continues.