Armen Ashotian is accused of having abused his powers to privatize a 450 square-meter property belonging to a state-run university when he served as education minister from 2009-2016. As part of the same criminal case, the Investigative Committee also indicted in early June four other former officials who had served during Sarkisian’s rule. They included former Finance Minister Gagik Khachatrian and Gayane Gasparian, the university’s former rector. Gasparian was arrested as well.
Ashotian strongly denies the accusations. A vocal critic of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, he was already arrested in June 2023 on corruption charges stemming from property acquisitions carried out by another state university. He denied them as well. The 51-year-old was moved to house arrest in September 2024 and set free a year later pending a verdict in his trial which is still going on.
Ashotian and Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), of which he is the deputy chairman, have linked the latest criminal proceedings to the June 7 parliamentary elections. The HHK did not run in the elections but urged supporters to vote for other major opposition groups.
Dozens of other opposition members or supporters were also arrested in the run-top to and after the disputed polls on various charges which they too call politically motivated.
Two more oppositionists were detained on vote-buying charges Wednesday and Thursday. They both are based in Gyumri and were on the list of election candidates of former President Robert Kocharian’s Hayastan alliance. One of them, Ara Nashkarian, was placed under house arrest shortly after his detention.