At the end of a six-year trial, Davit Hambardzumian was found guilty of assaulting some participants of massive antigovernment rallies that brought Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to power in 2018. Hambardzumian denies the accusation.
The verdict will not be enforced with immediate effect. The 39-year-old mayor, who has run Masis since 2016, will appeal against it.
The HHK, which is led by former President Serzh Sarkisian, claimed that the authorities want to scuttle its declared plans to put forward a parliamentary motion of no confidence in Pashinian’s government. It proposed Hambardzumian’s candidacy for the post of prime minister in June.
In a statement, the former ruling party also linked the prison sentence handed to the Masis mayor to the “ongoing wave of political repression” in the country.
Earlier this week, the opposition mayor of Armenia’s second largest city of Gyumri, Vartan Ghukasian, was arrested on corruption charges strongly denied by him. The arrest sparked angry protests by Ghukasian’s supporters which resulted in clashes with security forces sent to Gyumri from Yerevan. At least 37 of them were arrested as a result.
Ghukasian became mayor as a result of the ruling Civil Contract party’s defeat in a municipal election held on March 30. Civil Contract was also defeated that day in a large rural community just west of Yerevan.
The opposition mayor of that community, Volodya Grigorian, was shot dead on September 22 in what law-enforcement authorities described as a revenge killing. Despite the ensuing arrest of the self-confessed shooter of Grigorian, his family and supporters maintain that the killing has not been solved. Opposition groups say it was made possible by what they see as Pashinian’s crackdown on dissent and impunity enjoyed by his loyalists.
Ghukasian’s arrest fueled more opposition claims that Pashinian wants to get rid of elected local government chiefs openly challenging him ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections.