CCPR/C/116/D/2422/2014
the author and V were forced to race while carrying a bag full of stones, with the soldiers
betting money on the outcome.
2.6
The author and V ate and slept in the horse stables, and were ordered to clean, scrub
toilets, peel potatoes, empty trucks and clean the stables. The author asserts that they were
driven back and forth between the barracks, where they would spend five consecutive days,
and the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, where they would spend 10 consecutive
days. The first time they were driven to the border, they had to dig a new trench
approximately 150 metres from the river along the border. When they arrived, there were
two Azerbaijani hostages, H and A, who also had to dig the new trench. One soldier was
posted to keep guard. Behind the new trench was an older trench, at which “there were
about 30 soldiers, of whom 15 were on guard and the other 15 [were resting] in a house by
the trench”. The author maintains that he, V, H and A were the only conscripts assigned to
the new trench and would dig there each day that they were stationed at the border “from
7:00 in the morning until late in the evening, mostly until 24:00”. He further asserts that
they slept in the trenches while they were stationed at the border.
2.7
When the author was last stationed at the barracks, he was restrained by two soldiers
while two soldiers tried to rape V. The author managed to break free and rescue V. When
the brothers returned to their post at the border, H suggested that they should escape. The
author “was afraid of fleeing, but the attempted rape of his brother convinced [him and V]
to consent to fleeing with H and A. Additionally, H and A promised to help find their
mother”. That night, H struck a guard in the head with a shovel, and the four individuals
then fled towards a river. Before they could reach it, however, V was shot in the head. The
author wanted to stop running, but H “made him come along”, and they ran across a bridge
and entered Azerbaijan.
2.8
When the author, H and A arrived at a village near the border, he was still upset and
in shock about his brother’s death, as they had been very close. H and A asked the author to
sit down and wait for them; they returned a few hours later in a “military car”. The author
states that he does not know where they procured the car. The next morning, H and A
stopped the car, and the author got out and waited for a few hours. H then returned with an
elderly man, whom the author showed the letter that his mother had sent him at the
orphanage. The elderly man was familiar with the address and came with them in the car.
After a two-hour drive, they arrived at the author’s mother’s address in the city of Imishli.
2.9
The author lived with his mother in Imishli for the next two years. During this time,
he “mostly stayed indoors, because it was risky for him as half-Armenian to walk the
streets in the Azerbaijani village”. After two years, however, he could no longer tolerate
living in hiding. He called H, who helped him emigrate to Belarus. For the next three years,
the author worked for and lived with H’s uncle in Belarus without a residence permit.
When H’s uncle was no longer willing to risk having the author live with him as a migrant
with irregular status, he helped the author to leave Belarus. On 28 August 2013, the author
arrived in Denmark. He applied for asylum before the Danish Immigration Service on
30 August 2013. His application was rejected on 29 October 2013.
2.10 On 27 May 2014, the Danish Refugee Appeals Board dismissed the author’s appeal
of the rejection of his asylum application. The author disputes the Board’s finding that
many elements of his story were implausible, and that he had given contradictory accounts
in key respects. The author maintains that he gave a consistent, coherent and detailed
account of the facts. The Board considered it unlikely that he, V, H and A had been ordered
to dig trenches in an area close to the border after dark. However, the author argues that
they were able to see because of the moonlight and stopped digging when it became
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