Mayor Vartan Ghukasian was arrested on October 20 on corruption charges rejected by him as politically motivated. One week later, he was also indicted under an Armenian legal provision that makes it a crime to call for a violent overthrow of the constitutional order or violation of the country’s territorial integrity.
The new charge was based on Ghukasian’s September statement to the effect that Armenia should be part of a “union” with Russia similar to the European Union while preserving its “independent statehood.” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian decried Ghukasian’s “statement against the sovereignty of Armenia” on October 1. He also pledged to “throw out” the outspoken mayor of the country’s second largest city from “the political and public arena.”
Armenia’s Investigative Committee announced this week that Ghukasian has been cleared of any Russia-related wrongdoing. The law-enforcement agency did not explain why it decided to drop the charge criticized by Russia.
“It is impossible not to express astonishment at the fact that somebody managed to find in statements about advantages of cooperation with Russia calls for renouncing the country’s sovereignty,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on October 30. “And it sounds especially surprising against the background of numerous statements by Armenian public figures, officials and leaders about the need to join the European Union and the adoption in Armenia of a law on the launch of a corresponding process.”
“Membership in the European Union requires a substantial restriction of the sovereignty [of member states,] and they make this very clear … But for some reason we haven’t seen and heard any criminal cases in Armenia over support for European aspirations,” she said.
Pashinian met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg on December 22 on the sidelines of a summit of the leaders of ex-Soviet states. Armenia’s relations with Russia, its traditional ally, have grown increasingly strained in the last few years, with Pashinian’s government trying to reorient the South Caucasus country towards the West and making major concessions to its longtime arch-foes: Azerbaijan and Turkey.
“In the end, they probably weighed things up and realized that such absurd criminal proceedings must not be initiated,” one of Ghukasian’s lawyers, Aramayis Hayrapetian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, commenting on the Investigative Committee’s decision.
“Right from the beginning, that accusation was not legitimate,” he said. “My client did not call for giving up [Armenia’s] sovereignty. He simply expressed an opinion about joining an international union.”
Gyumri’s new municipal council appointed Ghukasian as mayor in April after four opposition groups collectively defeated Pashinian’s party in a local election. Armenian opposition leaders say the crackdown on Ghukasian is part of Pashinian’s intensifying efforts to stifle dissent ahead of next year’s general elections. Dozens of other critics of the Armenian government, including three archbishops of the Armenian Apostolic Church, have also been arrested in recent months. The authorities deny that they are political prisoners.