Ashotian was charged last November with abuse of power and money laundering in connection with his past chairmanship of the Board of Trustees of Yerevan’s Mkhitar Heratsi Medical University. The accusations, strongly denied by him, stem from a number of property acquisitions carried out by the university administration on his alleged orders. Armenia’s Investigative Committee claims that those deals caused the state-run university substantial financial damage.
The law-enforcement agency also charged Ashotian with “waste” of public funds following his arrest on June 15 which it attributed to his alleged attempts to obstruct its investigation. The oppositionist, who is the HHK’s deputy’s chairman, denies such interference.
The opposition party headed by former President Serzh Sarkisian has condemned Ashotian’s arrest as government retribution for his harsh criticism of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s policy on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Pashinian’s government and political allies insist that he did not order the investigators and courts to prosecute his vocal critic.
Ashotian’s lawyer, Tigran Atanesian, asked the Anti-Corruption Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court’s decision to allow investigators to hold his client in pre-trial detention for at least two months. One of the high court’s judges, Artur Nahapetian, rejected the appeal.
Atanesian said the decision was predictable because Nahapetian is a “close friend” of Argishti Kyaramian, the head of the Investigative Committee and one of Pashinian’s trusted lieutenants.
Ashotian, 47, was an influential figure during Sarkisian’s rule, serving as education minister from 2012-2016 and subsequently heading the Armenian parliament’s foreign relations committee.
Ashotian’s supporters have also condemned the authorities for sending to him to Yerevan’s Nubarashen prison whose inmates include individuals convicted of murders and other violent crimes. The Investigative Committee has declined to clarify why he is not held in two other prisons reserved for former government and security officials.
Vartan Harutiunian, a veteran human rights activist, suggested that the committee’s choice of the prison is an additional punishment for Ashotian. “Had he been kept in another prison he would have found himself in a very different human environment,” Harutiunian said, pointing to the presence of many violent criminals at Nubarashen.
The authorities have also banned Ashotian’s family members from visiting him in the prison. In addition, unlike many other criminal suspects and convicts, the former minister is not allowed to talk to them by phone.