Armenia’s former top army general currently heading the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has been summoned to Yerevan for interrogation in connection with the 2008 post-election violence in the country.
The Special Investigative Service (SIS) said on Tuesday that Yuri Khachaturov will be questioned as a “witness” in its long-running inquiry into the deadly unrest. A spokeswoman for the SIS told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that he has pledged to arrive in Yerevan and answer investigators’ questions at the end of this month.
The questions will likely revolve around the Armenian army’s alleged involvement in the March 2008 crackdown on opposition supporters who demonstrated in Yerevan in the wake of a disputed presidential election. Then President Robert Kocharian declared a state of emergency and ordered army units into the capital amid vicious clashes between security forces and protesters. Eight protesters and two police servicemen died as a result.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, who was a key speaker at the 2008 protests, told the SIS to finally solve the killings shortly after he swept to power in a popular uprising in May.
The law-enforcement body last week issued an arrest warrant for retired General Mikael Harutiunian, who was Armenia’s defense minister during the 2008 unrest. It charged Harutiunian with illegally using the armed forces against the protesters, saying that amounted to an “overthrow of constitutional order.”
Khachaturov was a deputy defense minister in March 2008. The newly elected President Serzh Sarkisian appointed him as chief of the army’s General Staff in April 2008. Khachaturov’s predecessor in that post, Seyran Ohanian, was named defense minister at the time.
Ohanian was personally involved in the enforcement of three-week emergency rule introduced by Kocharian. SIS investigators reportedly questioned him as a witness last week. They also sent a summons to Kocharian.
Khachaturov, 65, served as the army’s chief of staff from 2008-2016. Russia, Armenia and four other ex-Soviet states making up the CSTO appointed him as secretary general of the Russian-led defense pact in April 2017.
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