Two of them were arrested on Friday. An Armenian court did not allow investigators to detain another serviceman.
The Investigative Committee was understood to be seeking arrest warrants for the two other suspects as well. They too were charged with a “violation of rules for performing military service” that resulted in “severe consequences.”
The ten soldiers were taken prisoner during the November 16 fighting on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border which left at least 13 troops from both sides dead. The Armenian military said it also lost two border posts in what Yerevan condemned as an Azerbaijani incursion into Armenian territory.
The Investigative Committee already arrested two other soldiers in connection with the territorial loss later in November.
The law-enforcement agency indicted the five soldiers, freed by Baku on December 4, amid a scandal sparked by parliament speaker Alen Simonian’s disparaging comments about Armenian POWs.
Simonian was caught on camera saying during a recent trip to Paris that many of them “laid down their weapons and ran away” during fighting with Azerbaijani forces. In a secretly filmed video publicized on Tuesday, he claimed that their relatives have not protested lately because they realize that the soldiers are deserters.
Many of those relatives responded by staging angry protests in Yerevan and Gyumri. Simonian, who is a senior member of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, met with some of them on Wednesday.
Opposition leaders and civic activists also strongly condemned Simonian and demanded his resignation.
By contrast, neither Pashinian nor other any member of his political team publicly criticized or disavowed the speaker’s controversial comments. The prime minister said on Wednesday that law-enforcement authorities must investigate circumstances in which Armenian soldiers were captured by Azerbaijani troops.
Eduard Aghajanian, a senior pro-government lawmaker, denied on Friday any connection between those political statements and the charges brought against the five former POWs.
Former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian, who leads the parliamentary group of the main opposition Hayastan alliance, acknowledged the need for thorough investigations into such instances.
“But I believe that … it is the people who created conditions for that captivity in the first place who must first and foremost bear responsibility,” Ohanian said, referring to Armenia’s political leadership.