Armen Grigorian, a well-known entertainment producer, collapsed in a courtroom on Friday as he stood trial on charges of insulting residents of two Armenian regions supporting the government.
Grigorian had made disparaging comments about them a year before his arrest condemned by the Armenian opposition as politically motivated. He was taken into custody by the National Security Service, which normally deals with grave crimes.
The 57-year-old activist’s death sparked outcry from opposition leaders as well as the country’s human rights ombudswoman, Kristine Grigorian (no relation). The latter demanded “clarifications” from prosecutors and the Ministry of Justice, which runs Armenia’s prisons.
The Investigative Committee said this week that it has opened a criminal case in connection with Grigorian’s death, the precise cause of which is still not known.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General specified that the law-enforcement body is conducting an inquiry into prison medics’ failure to adequately perform their duties, rather than the wisdom of holding Grigorian in detention.
“Throughout the confinement period Armen Grigorian was under the surveillance of medical personnel and received treatment,” the Ministry of Justice insisted for its part.
In a statement, the ministry revealed that Grigorian complained of headaches, high blood pressure and dizziness right after being taken to a prison 50 kilometers west of Yerevan. But it said that neither the activist nor his lawyer formally notified the prison administration of his health problems.
Armenia - Angry opposition supporters protest outside the prime minister's office in Yerevan following the death of an arrested government critic, July 15, 2022.
The lawyer, Ruben Melikian, said on Friday that his client, who was a medic by education, did not allow him to “speak up about those problems in the court or any other bodies.”
Melikian and opposition leaders have blamed the country’s political leadership for Grigorian’s death. They have linked his May 18 arrest to daily antigovernment protests launched by the opposition in Yerevan on May 1.
More than two dozen other opposition activists are also currently under arrest. Most of them are accused of assaulting riot police during the protests aimed at forcing Pashinian to resign. The authorities maintain that the accusations are not politically motivated.
The opposition has accused Pashinian’s administration of weaponizing pre-trial arrests to try to neutralize its members and supporters fighting for regime change.
Zaruhi Hovannisian, who leads a team of civic activists monitoring Armenian prison conditions, likewise criticized on Wednesday the authorities’ excessive recourse to such arrests.
“Both under the former authorities and now pre-trial arrest has been used for pressuring individuals or as a punitive measure against them,” Hovannisian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Wednesday. “This does not correspond at all to objectives set in the Criminal Code.”