By Naira Bulghadarian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — A former commander of Nagorno-Karabakh’s army has been moved to house arrest after being held in an Armenian prison for more than three years on charges stemming from the 2020 war with Azerbaijan.
Lieutenant-General Mikael Arzumanyan was arrested in August 2022. Armenia’s Investigative Committee initially indicted him over the capture by Azerbaijani forces of the Karabakh town of Shushi in early November 2020. It claims that he displayed negligence, failing to deploy more troops around Shushi beforehand.
The law-enforcement agency went on to also accuse Arzumanyan of ordering Karabakh Armenian forces to withdraw from “strategically important” positions retaken by them days after the war broke out on September 27, 2020. It said that the order was illegal and unjustified.
Arzumanyan denied the accusations both before and during his ongoing trial that began in April 2023. Ignoring appeals from Karabakh leaders and Armenian opposition figures, law-enforcement authorities have repeatedly refused to release him from custody pending a verdict in the case.
A court holding the trial agreed late on October 27 to move the 52-year-old general to house arrest in return for bail worth 30 million drams ($78,000). His lawyer, Yerem Sargsyan, on October 28 attributed the decision to the fact that the statute of limitations for the first accusation leveled against his client expires on November 7.
