Monday, July 6, 2020
Pashinian Warns Of Another Coronavirus Lockdown
        • Gayane Saribekian
Armenia -- Medics at the Surb Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center in Yerevan, 
Armenia's largest hospital treating COVID-19 patients, June 5, 2020.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian warned on Monday that his government will have to 
impose another nationwide lockdown if Armenian hospitals are no longer able to 
cope with the continuing spread of the coronavirus in the country.
“As soon as we see that our healthcare system is no longer able … to cater for 
[infected] citizens we will have no choice but to revert to the restrictions 
regime to overcome this situation while realizing that this is a severe blow to 
our economy,” Pashinian told a daily news briefing.
“I hope that we will after all realize the gravity of the situation and a change 
in our behavior will be the instrument with which we will overcome this 
epidemic,” he said.
The warning came after the Armenian health authorities recorded more than 1,000 
coronavirus infections over the weekend, raising the total number of confirmed 
cases to 28,936. With 7 more coronavirus deaths registered on Sunday, the 
country’s official death toll from COVID-19 rose to 491.
Speaking at the briefing, Health Minister Arsen Torosian sought to put a brave 
face on this statistics. He said that the daily number of new cases, which has 
averaged between 500 and 700 in recent weeks, have been “relatively stable.”
“Usually epidemics spread explosively, but we are not in such a situation,” 
Torosian said, adding that Armenians have slowed the spread of the virus by 
practicing social distancing and wearing face masks in larger numbers.
Armenia -- A woman in Yerevan wears a protective mask and gloves, June 10, 2020.
Torosian noted at the same time that there are now very few vacant beds at the 
intensive care units of Armenian hospitals treating COVID-19 patients.
“The situation is now more or less relatively stable, but nobody can guarantee 
that it will not be reversed tomorrow,” Pashinian said in this regard. “Every 
day we wait anxiously for the midnight to see how many new cases have been 
registered. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that at a certain point we 
won’t have 800, 900 or 1,000 cases a day.”
Arman Badalian, an epidemiology lecturer at Yerevan State Medical University, 
suggested that the health authorities would have already registered this many 
new cases had they conducted more coronavirus tests.
The daily number of tests has averaged more than 2,000 for the past month. About 
30 percent of them have come back negative.
“The percentage of positive tests is quite high,” Badalian told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian service. “It means that there are many cases and we don’t hunt down all 
of them, so to speak.”
Badalian also insisted that social distancing and face masks alone will not 
contain the epidemic. The authorities, he said, should also resort to mass 
testing and more effective contact tracing.
The Armenian government already issued stay-at-home orders and shut down most 
nonessential businesses in late March. But it began easing those restrictions in 
mid-April and lifted the lockdown altogether by May 10. The number of new 
coronavirus cases soared in the following weeks.
Court Orders Fresh Trial Over 2001 Café ‘Murder’
Armena -- President Robert Kocharian and one of his bodyguards, Aghamal 
Harutiunian, August 9, 2001.
Armenia’s Court of Appeals agreed on Monday to order a fresh trial in connection 
with the violent death in September 2001 of a man at a Yerevan café visited by 
then President Robert Kocharian.
Poghos Poghosian, a 43-year-old ethnic Armenian from Georgia, was found dead in 
the café restroom shortly after Kocharian left its premises together with his 
entourage.
Prosecutors said at the time that Poghosian died after falling over and hitting 
the toilet floor with the back side of his head during a violent argument with 
one of Kocharian’s bodyguards, Aghamal Harutiunian. They claimed that the 
scuffle broke out after he “reprimanded” Poghosian for greeting Kocharian in a 
way he found too familiar.
Some eyewitnesses asserted, however, that Poghosian was attacked and forced into 
the toilet by several men who looked like security agents. The witnesses 
included a friend of Poghosian’s who shared a table with him at the Poplavok 
café, then a popular venue for jazz concerts.
Nevertheless, Harutiunian was the only presidential bodyguard prosecuted in 
connection with the deadly incident that caused uproar in Armenia. A district 
court in Yerevan backed the official version of events at the end of his 
high-profile trial in February 2002. Harutiunian was convicted of involuntary 
manslaughter and given a suspended 2-year prison sentence.
Poghosian’s friends and relatives as well as Kocharian’s political opponents 
condemned the verdict, alleging an official cover-up.
Armenian prosecutors decided to conduct a fresh investigation into Poghosian’s 
death only after the 2018 “Velvet Revolution” and the ensuing arrest and 
prosecution of Kocharian on coup and corruption charges rejected by the 
ex-president as politically motivated.
The prosecutors based their decision on testimony given last year by Stephen 
Newton, a British citizen who claims to have witnessed the 2001 incident. 
Newton, who worked in Armenia at the time, stood by his earlier claims that the 
victim was beaten up by several presidential bodyguards.
In January this year, the Office of the Prosecutor-General formally asked the 
Court of Appeals to overturn the 2002 guilty verdict and order a retrial. It 
said that the fresh investigation conducted by another law-enforcement body 
found further proof that Poghosian’s death was a murder committed by “a group of 
individuals.”
The Court of Appeals accepted the demand, sending the case back to the Yerevan 
court of first instance.
During court hearings on the prosecutors’ appeal Harutiunian’s lawyers denied 
the new and more serious accusations leveled against the former security 
officer. It is not yet clear whether any of the other former or current 
bodyguards have also been indicted.
Another Court Blocks Arrest Of Ex-President’s Son-In-Law
        • Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia -- Former Armenian Ambassador to the Vatican Mikael Minasian.
A court in Yerevan refused on Monday to allow investigators to arrest Mikael 
Minasian, former President Serzh Sarkisian’s fugitive son-in-law prosecuted on 
corruption charges denied by him.
Armenia’s State Revenue Committee (SRC) moved to arrest Minasian in late April 
one month after charging him with illegal enrichment, false asset disclosure and 
money laundering. A district court judge agreed to issue an arrest warrant for 
him on May 6. The decision was overturned by the Court of Appeals on June 4, 
however.
A few days later, the SRC broadened the criminal charges leveled against 
Minasian. It said that he had also failed to declare his “de facto” ownership 
from 2012-2018 of a 49 percent stake in Armenia’s largest food-exporting company.
The SRC went on to seek another arrest warrant for Minasian. A different 
district court judge rejected the demand following an overnight hearing. It was 
not immediately clear if the SRC investigators will appeal against the ruling.
“The accusations are completely baseless,” insisted one of Minasian’s lawyers, 
Amram Makinian. He again claimed that his client is a victim of “political 
persecution” overseen by the Armenian government.
Minasian enjoyed considerable political and economic influence in Armenia when 
it was ruled by his father-in-law from 2008-2018. He is also thought to have 
developed extensive business interests in various sectors of the Armenian 
economy.
A vocal critic of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Minasian left Armenia shortly 
after he was dismissed as ambassador to the Vatican in late 2018. In the last 
few months, he has posted on Facebook a series of lengthy video addresses to 
Armenians accusing Pashinian of corruption and misrule.
For his part, Pashinian has repeatedly accused the 42-year-old of illegally 
making a huge fortune during Sarkisian’s rule.
Minasian has so far declined to reveal his current place of residence. He has 
said instead that he is not returning to Armenia because he believes the 
investigators are acting on Pashinian’s orders.
Armenia Committed To ‘Friendly Relations’ With U.S.
Belgium - U.S. President Donald Trump and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian talk during a NATO summit in Brussels, 11 July 2018.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian reaffirmed Armenia’s commitment to deepening its 
relations with the United States and praised Washington’s policy on the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in an Independence Day message to President Donald 
Trump sent at the weekend.
“Armenia highly values the further development of friendly relations with the 
United States as part of the strategic dialogue established a year ago,” read 
the message.
“We are committed to continued participation in the U.S.-led initiatives aimed 
at fighting cross-border terrorism and enhancing international security to the 
best of our ability,” it said.
For his part, Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian noted a “unique connection” 
between the two countries and their “mutual sympathy and trust” in a statement 
on U.S. Independence Day. He described the U.S. as a “land of liberty and 
democracy.”
“We value the engaging character of our renewed dialogue, which enables us to 
discuss and expand our current common agenda,” said Mnatsakanian.
Both Pashinian and Mnatsakanian thanked Washington for its long-running 
assistance to Armenia and praised the U.S. role in international efforts to 
resolve the Karabakh conflict. The U.S. spearheads those efforts together with 
Russia and France within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group co-headed by the 
three world powers.
“We appreciate the United States’ constructive involvement and balanced policy 
in the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” wrote the Armenian 
prime minister.
Mnatsakanian discussed the Karabakh peace process with Philip Reeker, the acting 
U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, by phone on 
June 29.
Their phone conversation came just hours before the Armenian foreign minister 
held a fresh video conference with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov 
and the Minsk Group’s U.S., Russian and French co-chairs.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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