Ohanian, who leads the parliamentary group of the main opposition Hayastan alliance, described the case as government retribution for his political activities.
His son, Colonel Artur Ohanian, was one of senior officers prosecuted in connection with an Armenian counteroffensive against advancing Azerbaijani forces launched on October 7, 2020 ten days after the outbreak of large-scale fighting. Its failure facilitated Azerbaijan’s subsequent victory in the six-week war.
The officers initially included Lieutenant-General Jalal Harutiunian, the wartime commander of Karabakh’s Armenia-backed army. He was charged in September 2022 with “careless attitude towards military service.”
Armenia’s Investigative Committee said at the time that Harutiunian ordered two army units to launch an attack southeast of Karabakh despite lacking intelligence and the fact that they were greatly outnumbered by the enemy and had no air cover. It also blamed the general for poor coordination between the units.
A year later, a prosecutor overseeing the probe cleared Harutiunian of any wrongdoing, citing the findings of military experts. He did not drop the same charge brought against Artur Ohanian, who commanded one of those army units.
In a statement, the Office of the Prosecutor-General said that Colonel Ohanian and two other officers will go on trial for mishandling the operation. It said the overseeing prosecutor has endorsed their indictments and sent the case to a court.
The announcement came one week after Pashinian pledged to “go after” Seyran Ohanian and other Hayastan lawmakers in response to opposition allegations of corruption among members of his entourage.
“You must be the first to go [to prison] and you will go,” Pashinian told Ohanian during his government’s question-and-answer session in the parliament. He went on to brand the retired general, who had served as Armenia’s defense from 2008-2016, a “moron.”
Ohanian claimed on Wednesday that the criminal proceedings launched against his son are aimed at pressuring him. He declined to comment on the case itself. He stressed only that his son “simply participated in that counteroffensive” and did not plan or lead it.
General Harutiunian’s lawyer, Arsen Sardarian, argued in June 2023 that the counteroffensive was authorized by Pashinian and the then chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff, Lieutenant-General Onik Gasparian. He said that if his client is indeed guilty of mishandling that operation then so are Pashinian and Gasparian.
Pashinian downplayed his role in 2021. “That operation was proposed by a general and that proposal was deemed acceptable by a general and the possibility of putting that proposal into practice was assessed by a general,” he said in the parliament.