RFE/RL – Uproar As Armenian Authorities Expose Tsarukian’s Violent Arrest

Tsarukian was arrested on what he sees as trumped-up charges on Monday following a 12-hour search conducted in his villa just outside Yerevan and similar raids on dozens of companies owned by him. Armenia’s Investigative Committee released on Tuesday night a one-minute video of his detention, a highly unusual practice for criminal cases involving prominent critics of the Armenian government.

It shows a dozen armed and masked officers of the National Security Service (NSS) bursting into the villa, surrounding Tsarukian, grabbing his arms and legs, and knocking him to the ground. Armenian law allows such use of forces only if a criminal suspect is armed, strongly resists law-enforcement officers or threatens them otherwise. The 69-year-old businessman leading the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) was not shown putting up any resistance to the officers.

“They had no right to do such a thing, there was no need for it,” one of Tsarukian’s lawyers, Yerem Sargsian, said on Wednesday. “It was an excess of official authority that must be a subject of criminal proceedings.”

“The footage shows that [Tsarukian] is not resisting but several employees are trying to knock him to the ground,” Anna Melikian, a human rights activist, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

Another, more outspoken activist, Zhanna Aleksanian, claimed that the authorities violently arrested Tsarukian and publicized their actions at the behest of Pashinian. The latter repeatedly pledged to jail and dispossess his main political foes before and after last month’s disputed parliamentary elections in which the BHK was one of the main opposition contenders.

The extraordinary footage also prompted concern from the country’s human rights ombudswoman Anahit Manasian, drew strong condemnation from various opposition groups and caused outrage on social media.

“I would never have thought that I would feel sympathy for Tsarukian,” commented one social media user. “But the footage of the masked arrest show is simply disgusting, violating the dignity of a person, a citizen, violating the spirit of the law and justice.”

“I think the public sympathizes with Tsarukian, who endured all that with dignity,” said Aleksanian.

Hundreds of his supporters rallied outside an Investigative Committee building following his arrest. They applauded and chanted his name as a handcuffed Tsarukian was escorted out of the building and taken to a court in Yerevan. The tycoon smiled, telling journalists that fraud charges levelled against him are “fabricated.”

The NSS is currently headed by Andranik Simonian, a 36-year-old former judge reputed to be a figure strongly loyal to Pashinian. Simonian’s predecessor, Armen Abazian, was sacked in June last year the day after he reportedly defied Pashinian’s order to demonstratively and violently arrest Samvel Karapetian, a Russian-Armenian billionaire who later set up the country’s leading opposition group.

Masked NSS officers were deployed at the time around Karapetian’s mansion in Yerevan surrounded by hundreds of his angry supporters. But they did not storm it. Karapetian emerged from his residence and was escorted to police custody several hours later.

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