Andranik Tevanian, leader of the Mother Armenia party, was arrested on May 23 during the campaign for Armenia’s June 7 parliamentary elections. He was initially charged with high treason and espionage.
The trial, which also involves another Mother Armenia representative and former lawmaker, Aregnaz Manukian, is being held behind closed doors. Tevanian’s lawyers asked the court to hold the proceedings publicly, but the judge rejected the request after an objection from prosecutors.
The Yerevan court of general jurisdiction, which is hearing the case against the two oppositionists, extended the pretrial detentions of Tevanian and Manukian by three months and one month, respectively.
Tevanian was the number two candidate on the electoral list of the Prosperous Armenia Party led by wealthy businessman Gagik Tsarukian. The party narrowly failed to clear the 4-percent threshold required to enter parliament.
“It is obvious that the move had only one goal – to remove Andranik Tevanian from the electoral process,” the politician’s attorney Aram Orbelian said on Monday.
According to the current indictment, investigators have dropped some of the key elements of the initial allegations. It no longer refers to a Russian agent network or to Tevanian receiving $622,000 in exchange for information.
Instead, the indictment alleges that Tevanian passed a state secret to an unspecified nongovernmental organization. The sum of money mentioned in the case was an estimated budget for a grant program, which Tevanian’s lawyer says his organization never received.
Manukian, who has also been in detention for about two months, is accused of passing secret information to Tevanian.
Both defendants deny the charges and say the case amounts to political persecution.
In an audio message released from prison earlier this month, Tevanian said he was being punished for his views favoring stronger Armenian-Russian relations.
“In my case, what Nikol P. [Pashinian] considers to be high treason is opposing his rule, supporting the maintenance of Armenian-Russian relations at a strategic and allied level, supporting the continued presence of the Russian 102nd military base in Gyumri, contributing to the removal of the ruling Civil Contract party from power in Gyumri, opposing Armenia’s unilateral concessions under the guise of border delimitation and demarcation, and opposing the adoption of a new Constitution at Azerbaijan’s behest,” he said.
Tevanian visited the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Donbass region in 2024. He also appeared in several propaganda shows aired by Russian state television channels in recent years.
Tevanian’s arrest came one day after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian called him a traitor at a campaign rally.
During the election campaign Pashinian also accused his main challengers, including Tsarukian, former President Robert Kocharian and Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetian, of being “agents of foreign influence” and “warmongers.”
Tsarukian and Kocharian were arrested on corruption-related charges in the months following the elections, in which Pashinian’s party retained its parliamentary majority.
Karapetian, whose Strong Armenia alliance finished second in the elections, winning seats in parliament alongside Kocharian’s alliance, remains under house arrest as part of an investigation into an alleged call for the violent overthrow of the constitutional order.