Pashinian called the armed attack an ordinary “criminal incident” as opposition lawmakers continued to deplore the Armenian authorities’ failure to track down and catch the soldier, Nasimi Musayev, before the intrusion.

Musayev was arrested last Thursday shortly after wounding the woman, Ani Avetisian, at her home in Shaki, a village in Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province. Avetisian ran to the house after being alerted about the intrusion by one of her children. According to her sister Arpi, she was shot in the foot and hand while attempting to pull Musayev’s assault rifle away from the two teenage children.

The 39-year-old woman, hailed by many in Armenia as a hero, managed to stab the intruder with a kitchen knife before he fled the scene and was captured by local police. She remains in a hospital in Yerevan, with doctors there reportedly trying to save her foot from amputation. One of her children, a 15-year-old boy, was also injured and hospitalized.

Speaking in the Armenian parliament, Pashinian said that Avetisian called the police before rushing to the scene.

“But before the police arrived, the mother got there first,” he said, answering a question from an opposition parliamentarian. “Had they waited for the police to arrive, in all likelihood, nothing would have happened.”

Pashinian similarly downplayed the incident late on Tuesday in an interview with Infocom.am that prompted angry reactions from opposition figures and Avetisian’s sister.

“He [Musayev] went and fell asleep in that house; then the homeowners arrived and discovered him, and it was amidst that element of surprise and the ensuing chaos that the whole incident took place,” he said.

Pashinian emphasized the fact that the Azerbaijani soldier was also injured and did not put up resistance during his arrest. He also claimed that the magazine of the soldier’s rifle was fully loaded at that point.

“It wasn’t fully loaded,” countered Arpi Avetisian. “He fired one shot but missed. He tried to fire the second one at the kid, and Ani’s fingers and foot were hit as she attempted to lower the weapon.”

“They probably should have covered him [with a blanket] so he wouldn’t catch a cold,” she said with sarcasm.

The wounded woman’s sister also slammed Pashinian for categorically ruling out the possibility that Musayev crossed the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on a sabotage mission. Armenian law-enforcement authorities investigating the incident have not drawn such a conclusion so far.

“If he had lost his way and didn’t want to cause harm, he should have surrendered, instead of attacking a family,” Arpi Avetisian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

“In effect, Nikol Pashinian — if not justifying — is at least attempting to downplay the actions of the armed Azerbaijani who shot an Armenian woman in the presence of her children,” Marianna Ghahramanian, a spokeswoman for the main opposition Strong Armenia alliance, wrote in a late-night Facebook post. “And, as with various other criminal cases, he is steering the course of the investigation by rushing to dismiss the possibility of a subversive infiltration.”

Ghahramanian also repeated opposition claims that Pashinian is intent on freeing and repatriating Musayev as part of his appeasement policy towards Azerbaijan. Pashinian said in this regard that the captured soldier must be tried and “serve at least part of his sentence in Armenia.” The premier effectively dismissed calls to try to exchange him for some of at least 19 Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani authorities say that Musayev deserted on September 26 an Azerbaijani army unit deployed on the Armenian border. Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) claims to have been notified by them about his disappearance on September 29, two days before the violent incident. It never issued security alerts to residents of nearby Armenian communities. Pashinian fired on Monday a deputy head of the NSS overseeing Armenian border guards.

Armenian opposition lawmakers demanded Defense Minister Suren Papikian’s sacking earlier on Tuesday, blaming him for the fact that Musayev crossed the militarized border unnoticed and advanced deep into Armenian territory. Papikian acknowledged “shortcoming” in the border protection when he spoke in the National Assembly on Wednesday.

“They have had and will have consequences, but we can talk about the full extent of those consequences after the internal investigation is over,” he said.