The former parliamentarian, Mihran Hakobian, was hospitalized on Monday after being attacked and injured by masked men in broad daylight outside a shopping mall in Yerevan.
The Armenian police reported four arrests in connection with the assault condemned by Hakobian’s lawyers as well as other opposition figures as politically motivated. Another law-enforcement agency, the Investigative Committee, put the number of arrested suspects at five later in the day. It said three of them have been charged with hooliganism that resulted in “light injuries” while the two others with assisting in the violence.
The committee did not identify the attackers or say anything about their motives. It said only that the attack was “planned in advance.”
A vocal critic of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Hakobian was a member of Armenia’s former parliament, representing ex-President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party. In recent years, he has not been engaged in active politics and has mainly used social media to denounce Pashinian and his policies. Shortly before the attack, he ridiculed Pashinian’s weekend calls for Armenian priests and church choirs to perform the country’s national anthem before every liturgy.
According to some news reports, Hakobian made but then swiftly deleted last week a post alleging that National Security Service (NSS) Director Andranik Simonian has an affair with Prosecutor-General Anna Vardapetian. He has still not confirmed or denied that.