Azerbaijani journalist Chingiz Mustafayev known for his shooting of military action in the region of the Karabakh conflict was one of those, who told the truth about Khojaly events. Mustafayev taped corpses of Khojaly residents found near the Azerbaijani positions not far from Aghdam in March 1992 and made public the information about the real perpetrators of Khojaly tragedy.
“On February 28 (1992), when I got there, I asked permission to cross over to the other side and see how the tragedy had happened. I was told that there were bodies only in Khojaly, talks had been held with the Armenians, and the bodies had been exchanged and brought back. Khojaly residents told me that the corpses were near pig farms, and that there were also people left alive. Khojaly residents went there on foot and hid there,” Mustafayev said.
Upon hearing that, the journalist asked them to provide him with a helicopter, a car, or let him go there on foot. They again told him that it was impossible to get there: everyone was massacred; Armenians were allegedly keeping the place under fire, and so on.
“On February 29, while flying by military helicopter to the same place from the village Umudlu, we flew over that side at my request. I saw with my own eyes that I had already passed through that place. The pig farm was 10 kilometers away from Khojaly. More than 50 bodies were scattered seven hundred meters away from our post near Derebeyi. The fact that I saw 10 of our citizens walking among the corpses on the shots taken from above is still a mystery causing shiver. Those people in military uniforms were from Aghdam. I have those shots – they are calmly walking among the corpses. I am still told that there were no bodies, no one could get there, as there were Armenians there and so on. However, when we finally got off the helicopter, three of the helicopters immediately returned to Aghdam allegedly ‘forgetting’ us there. Those 10, having walked there on foot, left on foot,” the journalist emphasized.
According to him, his group was shooting there for 45 minutes. The place was 25 meters away from the road to Nakhichevanik. Cars of Armenians passed through the road twice. They noticed the journalist and his group, who then walked back to Aghdam.
“I still cannot understand why the corpses 6-7 hundred meters away from our posts, among which 10 our people were freely walking, were not taken away. Corpses had been exchanged and brought back from Khojaly provided there were negotiations.
As you see, allegedly, it was a ‘trap’: the Armenians kill our people. It was not allowed to go there also because the Armenians were killing people there,” Mustafayev said.
As for the committee created for the investigation of the events, the journalist noted that he had suspicions about its work.
According to him, the committee was going to show that it worked. However, the committee would be included in the Committee investigating the January tragedy, the helicopter tragedy, and all the tragedies in general, and the investigation would last at least 5-6 years. It was unknown, when it would end.
Forces responsible for those tragedies are preparing something new day by day.
Chingiz Mustafayev was killed on June 15, 1992. He was posthumously awarded the National Hero of Azerbaijan title for his shootings of the military action in the region of the Karabakh conflict. Chingiz Mustafayev is primarily known for his taping of the Khojaly residents’ corpses found near the Azerbaijani positions not far from Aghdam in January 1992. He videotaped those corpses on March 2, 1992. When Mustafayev told Azerbaijan’s former president Ayaz Mutallibov that the bodies’ positions and the corpses’ injuries were not compatible with the initial inspection, the president told him “not to say a single word about it, otherwise, he would be killed.”