A Yerevan court has sentenced Davit Hambardzumyan, the mayor of Masis and the opposition’s joint nominee for prime minister, to six years and three months in prison over a case dating back to the 2018 Velvet Revolution.
The verdict, delivered by Judge Zhora Chichoyan, revoked his bail and ordered him taken into custody immediately — a move the opposition has denounced as politically motivated and aimed at derailing efforts to launch a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Hambardzumyan was charged under the former criminal code’s Article 250(4) — armed hooliganism — over a confrontation at the Hayanist–Hovtashat junction on 22 April 2018, during the height of the anti-government protests that brought Pashinyan to power. Prosecutors alleged that Hambardzumyan and his brother took part in a violent clash against demonstrators heading to Yerevan’s Republic Square. He was detained that year but released on bail in autumn of the same year. For the past six years, the case has moved slowly through Armenia’s courts until Wednesday’s ruling.
Lawyer Tigran Atanesyan said the verdict ignored both the absence of incriminating evidence and the fact that the case qualified for amnesty. ‘Not a single witness gave testimony against Hambardzumyan, yet the judge still ruled for imprisonment’, he told reporters after the hearing. ‘This is a textbook example of selective justice’. He added that the defence would appeal the decision to the Court of Appeal.
Hambardzumyan’s legal troubles extend beyond the 2018 incident. He was also accused of organising mass unrest and using violence against protesters in Yerevan’s Erebuni district during the same period, but that case was dropped for lack of evidence earlier this year. In September, he was again briefly detained over the Erebuni episode before being released when the court found the detention unlawful.
The Republican Party led by former President Serzh Sargsyan called Hambardzumyan’s conviction part of a broader pattern of political persecution. In a sharply worded statement, the party’s executive board said the court had become an ‘instrument of the ruling regime’, using an outdated and dormant case to neutralise an opposition figure. ‘By sentencing Davit Hambardzumyan to long-term imprisonment, the authorities are trying to obstruct the constitutional process of declaring no confidence in the Prime Minister’, the statement read. ‘This is yet another manifestation of deepening authoritarianism and the consolidation of a one-man show in Armenia’.
Hambardzumyan was nominated by the RPA and the I Have Honour parliamentary alliance in June as the opposition’s consensus candidate for prime minister — a symbolic move to challenge Pashinyan’s government through impeachment proceedings.
The process would require at least 36 signatures to initiate and 54 votes in favour to succeed, making it all but impossible without defections from Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party.
The rival Hayastan bloc, led by former president Robert Kocharyan, has yet to endorse Hambardzumyan’s candidacy.
Bloc leader Seyran Ohanyan told reporters this week that they would announce a position soon.
