Bagrat Archbishop Galstanyan defeated political scientist Harutyun Mkrtchyan in the defamation case. The case was examined in the court of general jurisdiction of the first instance of Armavir region, presided over by judge Hovhannes Melkonyan.

It should be noted that in one of his interviews given to “Armenian Time”, political scientist Harutyun Mkrtchyan questioned the statement of Bishop Bagrat to freeze the position of the head of the Diocese of Tavush, calling him a “self-frozen terter”, “deviant cleric”, “modern-day Osama bin Laden”, “Tasovchik” and so on. He also announced that the temporary suspension of the post of Bishop Bagrat means that the Catholicos justifies “murders of people”, “shooting under the walls”, “terrorist actions”, for which Archbishop Bagrat has now been charged.

“The court partially satisfied Bagrat Galstanyan’s claim against the defendant Harutyun Mkrtchyan. According to that, Mkrtchyan should compensate the reverend 600,000 drams, 300,000 drams each for defamation and insult episodes. With similar claims that we have applied to the court, all of them have been rejected, the courts did not dare to satisfy. We have appealed them to the appellate court. In this case, there is a final act, and if there is no appeal from the other side, it will enter into legal force,” lawyer Tatevik Soghoyan told Sputnik Armenia.

Let us add that Reverend Bagrat demanded from Harutyun Mkrtchyan to confiscate 3 million drams as compensation for non-material damages, of which 1.5 million for defamation and the other 1.5 million for insult.

To remind: Bagrat Archbishop Galstanyan was arrested in 2025. on the night of June 25-26. According to the RA Investigative Committee, the participants and leaders of the “Holy Struggle” movement had planned to carry out acts of terrorism and seizure of power in RA.

On August 21, according to the decision of judge Karen Farkhoyan, his detention period was extended by 3 months, on November 13 – by another three months, on April 23 – by 2 months.

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