Former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian has also been indicted in connection with the deadly breakup of opposition protests staged in Yerevan in 2008, a senior prosecutor confirmed on Monday.
Vahagn Muradian, who oversees major criminal investigations, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that the Special Investigative Service (SIS) charged Ohanian with “overthrowing the constitutional order” in the wake of a disputed presidential election held in February 2008.
It is not yet clear whether Ohanian accepts or denies the grave accusation. He is understood to have not been arrested pending the outcome of the investigation conducted by the SIS.
The SIS brought last year the same charges against two other retired generals, Mikael Harutiunian and Yuri Khachaturov, as well as former President Robert Kocharian. They all denied any wrongdoing.
Only Kocharian has been arrested to date. He claims that Armenia’s current leadership is waging a politically motivated “vendetta” against him.
The SIS says that Kocharian illegally used the armed forces against opposition supporters who demonstrated in Yerevan against alleged electoral fraud. According to the law-enforcement body, the ex-president ordered troops into the Armenian capital before declaring a state of emergency late on March 1, 2008 amid deadly clashes between security forces and opposition protesters. Eight protesters and two police servicemen died in what was the worst street violence in the country’s history.
Harutiunian, who now lives in Russia, served as defense minister while Ohanian was the chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff at the time.
Ohanian was personally involved in the enforcement of the three-week emergency rule. Serzh Sarkisian, the official election winner, appointed him as defense minister after succeeding Kocharian as president of the republic.
Shortly after being sacked in October 2016, Ohanian teamed up with two opposition politicians, Vartan Oskanian and Raffi Hovannisian, to challenge Sarkisian in parliamentary elections held in April 2017. Their ORO bloc failed to win any seats in Armenia’s parliament.