Azerbaijan confirms former top Karabakh official Vardanyan detained

Azerbaijan's border service confirmed on Wednesday that it had detained a former top official in the separatist ethnic Armenian administration of Nagorno-Karabakh, Ruben Vardanyan, as he tried to leave for Armenia.

Vardanyan has been taken to Baku and handed over to other state agencies, it said.

Vardanyan, a billionaire investment banker, served as the head of Karabakh's separatist government between November 2022 and February 2023.