An opposition leader has been arrested in Armenia on charges of plotting to assassinate the prime minister and seize power, his lawyer denouncing “persecution” after the decried Nagorno Karabakh peace agreement.
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Leader of the opposition party “Fatherland” (center right), Artour Vanetsian, former head of the security services, was arrested on Saturday after being summoned to the headquarters of the security services in Yerevan, according to his lawyer Lousine Sahakian.
Sahakian said her client was accused of wanting to kill Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, who was very unpopular since the signing of a humiliating peace agreement with Azerbaijan that ended nearly six weeks of deadly fighting for the control of Nagorno-Karabakh.
This agreement devotes significant territorial gains to Azerbaijan in this mountainous enclave now populated almost exclusively by Armenians and which had already been the subject of a war in the 1990s.
The announcement of this agreement had provoked angry protests in Yerevan and protesters had entered the seat of government and parliament, sacking them.
The opposition demands since the resignation of Mr. Pachinian, that part of his supporters denounce as a “traitor”.
“The authorities try to silence the opponents and go so far as to accuse (Artour Vanetsian) of plotting to usurp power and kill Nikol Pachinian”, denounced the lawyer Lousine Sahakian. “It is a shameful persecution of the opposition,” she added.
Mr Vanetsian, who is known to have ties to Russia, was already among 10 opposition leaders arrested on Thursday for staging protests against the peace deal. They were released the next day by the courts.
At the same time, the Armenian security services announced on Saturday evening the arrest of a man, whose identity has not been revealed, with “anti-government opinions” and in possession of “a large number of weapons”.
He was preparing, according to the security services, for “an attempted assassination of a statesman and a usurpation of power”, together with “politicians with anti-government views and their supporters”.