A court of first instance sentenced Davit Hambardzumian after finding him guilty of assaulting some participants of massive antigovernment rallies that brought Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to power in 2018. Hambardzumian denied the accusation throughout his six-year trial. He was jailed and stripped of his post despite appealing against the verdict condemned by his Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) and other opposition groups as politically motivated.
The Court of Appeals agreed to move Hambardzumian to house arrest for now. The presiding judge announced the decision in a courtroom packed with the ex-mayor’s supporters.
The 39-year-old had run Masis since 2016. The local council controlled by the HHK voted in November to appoint his first deputy, Norayr Hakobian, as the new mayor.
Opposition leaders claim that Hambardzumian’s imprisonment is part of Pashinian’s crackdown on dissent aimed at weakening his political opponents ahead of Armenia’s general elections due in June. Dozens of other critics of the government, including another opposition mayor and three archbishops of the Armenian Apostolic Church, have also been arrested in recent months. The authorities deny that they are political prisoners.