The Investigative Committee indicted Lieutenant-General Jalal Harutiunian last September on two counts of “careless attitude towards military service” One of the accusations stems from an Armenian counteroffensive against advancing Azerbaijani forces launched on October 7, 2020 ten days after the outbreak of large-scale fighting. Its apparent failure facilitated Azerbaijan’s subsequent victory in the six-week war.
The Investigative Committee said Harutiunian ordered two army units to launch an attack southeast of Karabakh despite lacking intelligence and the fact that they were outnumbered by the enemy and had no air cover. It also blamed the general for poor coordination between the units which it said also contributed to the failure of the operation. In addition, he was charged over the capture by Azerbaijani troops of the frontline positions of a Karabakh Armenian artillery unit on October 12, 2020.
The 48-year-old general, who was seriously wounded in an Azerbaijani missile strike on October 26, 2020, denies the accusations carrying between four and eight years in prison. He was not arrested pending investigation, unlike his successor Mikael Arzumanian, who is facing separate charges in Armenia stemming from the disastrous war.
The Investigative Committee announced on Tuesday that it has “temporarily” suspended the probe in order not to exceed a legal time limit set for pre-trial investigations. It said it has asked a team of unnamed military experts to pass judgment on Harutiunian’s wartime actions. Their findings are thus expected to determine whether he will go on trial or be cleared of the accusations.
Harutiunian’s lawyer, Arsen Sardarian, said on Wednesday that the investigators made the decision because they have trouble substantiating the charges. He claimed that the counteroffensive in question was not necessarily a failure because the Karabakh and Armenian forces killed some 300 Azerbaijani soldiers and suffered only 20 casualties.
Sardarian also argued that the counteroffensive was authorized by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and the then chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff, Lieutenant-General Onik Gasparian. He said that if his client is indeed guilty of mishandling that operation then so are Pashinian and Gasparian as well.
Pashinian has denied Armenian opposition allegations that he is the one who ordered the operation in October 2020. He has blamed Armenia’s former leaders for the outcome of the 2020 war.
Opposition leaders maintain that Pashinian is primarily to blame for Armenia’s defeat in the war which left at least 3,800 Armenian soldiers dead. They claim that he ordered the criminal charges against Harutiunian, Arzumanian and other senior military officers to try to dodge responsibility.