Lieutenant-General Arzumanian was arrested in August 2022. Armenia’s Investigative Committee initially indicted him over the capture by Azerbaijani forces of the Karabakh town of Shushi (Shusha) in early November 2020. It claims that he displayed negligence, failing to deploy more troops around Shushi beforehand.
The law-enforcement agency went on to also accuse Arzumanian of ordering Karabakh Armenian forces to withdraw from “strategically important” positions retaken by them days after the war broke out on September 27, 2020. It said that the order was illegal and unjustified.
Arzumanian denied the accusations both before and during his ongoing trial that began in April 2023. Ignoring appeals from Karabakh leaders and Armenian opposition figures, law-enforcement authorities have repeatedly refused to release him from custody pending a verdict in the case.
A court holding the trial agreed late on Monday to move the 52-year-old general to house arrest in return for bail worth 30 million drams ($78,000). His lawyer, Yerem Sargsian, on Tuesday attributed the decision to the fact that the statute of limitations for the first accusation levelled against his client expires on November 7.
Arzumanian was appointed as commander of Karabakh’s Defense Army on October 27, 2020 the day after his predecessor, Lieutenant-General Jalal Harutiunian, was seriously wounded in an Azerbaijani missile strike.
Harutiunian was prosecuted in September 2022 on different charges related to the 2020 war and also denied by him. Although Harutiunian avoided pre-trial arrest, an Armenian court of first instance sentenced him to five and a half years in prison in February this year. The prison sentence was subsequently upheld by two higher courts.
Armenian opposition leaders have criticized criminal proceedings launched against these and other generals, saying that they are part of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s efforts to deflect blame for the disastrous war. They hold Pashinian primarily responsible for Armenia’s defeat in the six-week hostilities. The premier has put the blame on the country’s former leaders.
In February 2022, the pro-government majority in the Armenian parliament set up an ad hoc commission with the stated aim of examining the causes of the defeat, assessing the Armenian government’s and military’s actions and looking into what had been done for national defense before the hostilities. Opposition lawmakers boycotted the commission, saying that its primary mission is to cover up Pashinian’s wartime incompetence and disastrous decision making.
The commission chairman, Andranik Kocharian, submitted its findings to parliament speaker Alen Simonian two months ago. The report was expected to be mostly released and debated during a plenary session of the Armenian parliament in September. However, Simonian unexpectedly blocked the discussion and classified the 215-page report.
The decision means that only parliament deputies with security clearance are allowed read the document. Gegham Manukian of the opposition Hayastan alliance was the first to do that earlier this month. He claimed afterwards that the parliamentary commission did not absolve Pashinian of blame for the war’s outcome.