The man, Tigran Arakelian, was detained on June 17 on charges of blackmailing state officials to extort money from them. The Investigative Committee has not yet named those officials.
In a video message posted on social media late on Thursday, Arakelian claimed that senior law-enforcement officials, including Kyaramian, beat him up in the office of the head of the committee’s Yerevan division.
“I was subjected to beating, verbal abuse and threats to my family,” said the suspect, who is currently under house arrest. “They told me that ‘you’re not going to see your wife and children anymore, a car will run over you, your home will be set on fire at night, something will happen to your loved ones because we are going to eliminate you together with your family.’ That was said by none other than Argishti Kyaramian.
“Argishti Kyaramian met me twice that day and during both meetings I was tortured, tortured by an electric shock gun. They poured water on me and started burning various parts of my body with the electric shock gun.”
Arakelian did not say what his interrogators wanted him to say or do. He said he will reveal that later on.
Armenia - Former political activist Tigran Arakelian.
The Investigative Committee flatly denied the allegations on Friday. “We do not comment on baseless statements made out of thin air,” said a spokesman for the law-enforcement agency.
Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General pledged, meanwhile, to look into the latest allegations of torture facing the country’s law-enforcement authorities. Human rights activists say that ill-treatment of criminal suspects remains widespread despite sweeping law-enforcement reforms promised by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government.
Arakelian was already arrested in 2015 and subsequently convicted of blackmailing two Armenian parliamentarians. He had already spent two years in prison for his role in a 2011 violent clash between several police officers and opposition activists.
Arakelian used to be a well-known member of former President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress (HAK). Incidentally, Pashinian was also actively involved in Ter-Petrosian’s opposition movement until falling out with the ex-president in 2012.
Kyaramian, 32, is now widely regarded as one of the prime minister’s trusted lieutenants, having held five high-level positions in the Armenian security apparatus and government since Pashinian came to power in 2018. He previously worked as a police officer and prosecutor.