Yerevan, Armenia – Armenia’s safety companies arrested one of many nation’s high non secular leaders on terrorism fees Wednesday and accused him of plotting to overthrow the federal government, the second arrest in every week of a distinguished political opponent.
Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, a significant determine within the influential Apostolic Church, was arrested by Armenia’s Investigative Committee, which accused him of planning to hold out bombings and arson assaults to disrupt energy provides and stage accidents on main roads to paralyze site visitors. His lawyer described the fees as “fiction.”
Galstanyan leads the Sacred Battle opposition motion and has demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who was the main target of protests final yr by tens of hundreds of demonstrators after Armenia agreed at hand over management of a number of border villages to bitter rival Azerbaijan and to normalize relations between the neighbors.
Galstanyan leads the Tavush Diocese in northeastern Armenia and spearheaded a motion that opposed the handover of the villages within the nation, which was as soon as a part of the Soviet Union. Though the territorial concession was the motion’s core concern, it has expanded to a wide selection of complaints about Pashinyan, who got here to energy in 2018.
The choice to show over the villages adopted a lightning navy marketing campaign in September 2023, by which Azerbaijan’s navy compelled ethnic Armenian separatists within the Karabakh area to capitulate.
Pashinyan wrote on social media that the safety companies had foiled a plot by “the prison oligarch clergy to destabilize Armenia and take energy.”
Officers mentioned 13 others additionally had been detained amid raids by police on the houses of dozens of opposition activists. The Investigative Committee mentioned it carried out over 90 searches and recovered proof that included firearms and ammunition.
Along with disputing the fees, Galstanyan’s lawyer, Sergei Harutyunyan, mentioned police searched the cleric’s residence for six hours however discovered solely smoke bombs which are generally used at protests in Armenia.
“They frolicked finding out each room, each closet, each letter; they recorded all the pieces,” Harutyunyan mentioned.
Makes an attempt to question Pashinyan had been unsuccessful, however the relationship between him and the Apostolic Church has deteriorated.
On June 8, Pashinyan referred to as for church chief Catholicos Karekin II to resign after accusing him of fathering a baby regardless of a vow of celibacy. The church launched a press release on the time accusing Pashinyan of undermining Armenia’s “religious unity” however didn’t deal with the declare in regards to the youngster.
Pashinyan’s declare sparked recent anger among the many church’s followers, together with Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, who appeared in a video saying that the non secular establishment was beneath assault.
Karapetyan, 59, was detained June 18, days after the clip was posted on-line, and accused of calling for seizing energy within the nation. Pashinyan later mentioned the billionaire’s power firm, Electrical energy Networks of Armenia, could be nationalized.
