By Hayk Ghazaryan
A court in Yerevan has rejected a complaint challenging authorities’ refusal to open a criminal investigation into Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s remarks to a politician from Nagorno-Karabakh, including asking why he had not died in a trench.
Artur Osipyan, who sought the investigation following a confrontation with Pashinyan during an election campaign event in May, announced the September 18 ruling on Facebook on October 2. He said he would appeal to the Criminal Court of Appeals.
The confrontation took place on May 18 in Yerevan’s Arabkir district, where Pashinyan was campaigning for his ruling Civil Contract party. Osipyan approached the prime minister and questioned him about Nagorno-Karabakh.
As the exchange escalated, Pashinyan called Osipyan “scum” and a “scoundrel,” accused him of having fled, and demanded: “Explain why you didn’t die. Why didn’t you die in a trench?”
Osipyan filed a criminal complaint on July 3, asking authorities to investigate Pashinyan’s statements. The Investigative Committee declined to open proceedings, and his subsequent challenges to prosecutors and the court were unsuccessful.
According to Osipyan’s account of the ruling, the court accepted investigators’ and prosecutors’ conclusions that Pashinyan’s remarks were conversational in nature and contained no public calls for hatred, hostility or violence. The court also found that the prime minister’s words and actions included efforts to prevent violence.
Osipyan was arrested after the May 18 confrontation and subsequently placed in pretrial detention. He held a 23-day hunger strike while in custody.
He separately faces criminal charges of publicly calling for violence against Pashinyan on social media, obstructing the Civil Contract campaign event and committing hooliganism during the confrontation. His lawyer, Davit Hovhannisyan, has disputed the charges, saying Osipyan had simply asked the prime minister questions.
Osipyan has also filed a civil lawsuit against Pashinyan, seeking a public apology on the prime minister’s official Facebook page, a retraction of statements describing him as someone who fled and a looter, and symbolic compensation of one Armenian dram, less than one U.S. cent.
According to Osipyan, Pashinyan’s legal team has asked the court to reject the civil claim or terminate the proceedings.
The first hearing, scheduled for September 24, was postponed until October 30. Osipyan told CivilNet that his passport, seized in the separate criminal case, had not yet been returned, preventing the court from verifying his identity.
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