Aregnaz Manukian, a leading member of the opposition Mayr Hayastan party, was prosecuted as part of a high treason case against the party chairman, Andranik Tevanian. The latter was arrested on May 22 two days after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian announced espionage charges against him while campaigning for Armenia’s June 7 parliamentary elections.
The Investigative Committee claimed until recently that Tevanian was recruited and paid $622,000 by a foreign, presumably Russian, intelligence service two years ago to supply it with state secrets. The law-enforcement agency dropped the espionage charges shortly before he and Manukian went on trial on September 8.
Tevanian is now accused of only passing confidential details of a closed-door parliamentary hearing on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border demarcation on to an unnamed Russian nongovernmental organization. And the investigators no longer claim that he received money for that.
Manukian, who held a parliament seat at the time, continues to be accused of sharing that classified information with her party’s pro-Russian leader. The judge presiding over their trial extended their arrest as recently as on September 8. His decision to move Manukian to house arrest therefore came as a surprise.
“The judge noted in his decision that he is taking into account the fact that the case is at the preliminary hearing stage," Manukian’s lawyer, Tatevik Soghoyan, told journalists.
During her imprisonment, Manukian was for weeks not allowed to see and speak with any friends or relatives, including her 13-year-old daughter. Law-enforcement authorities reluctantly allowed the girl to visit her mother in prison on August 19 following an uproar from opposition and public figures.
Tevanian’s party ran in the June 7 elections in a de facto alliance with businessman Gagik Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK). Pashinian repeatedly pledged to jail Tsarukian and the leaders of two other major opposition groups during and after the election campaign. The BHK leader was arrested on July 6.
Dozens of other opposition leaders, members and supporters have also been arrested in recent months on different charges denied by them. At least two prominent oppositionists were moved to house arrest this summer.
The Armenian opposition has rejected as fraudulent their official election results that gave victory to Pashinian’s Civil Contract party.