Former Commander of the Nagorno-Karabakh Army found guilty of deadly negligence

The former Commander of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defence Army, Jalal Harutyunyan, has been found guilty of charges of having a negligent attitude towards military service during martial law and war, resulting in the death of 20 soldiers during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Harutyunyan was convicted on 15 January. He now faces up to 10 years imprisonment.

According to Liparit Simonyan, who represented the victims in the case, Harutyunyan was found guilty of the death of 20 soldiers of the Tsor military unit on 12 October 2020.

Simonyan told RFE/RL that on the date, the division, located in a combat position, spotted a group of soldiers approaching from the opposite direction. As they tried to determine their identity, they reportedly received confirmation that the soldiers were Armenians.

‘[Harutyunyan] personally said that they are 100% ours. He said it twice. As a result [Azerbaijanis] came and surrounded those children [referring to the soldiers]. The children resisted as much as they could, but due to the inequality of forces, there were 20 casualties’,  Simonyan said.

Harutyunyan’s lawyer, Arsen Sardaryan, vowed to appeal the decision, calling the court’s decision ‘very unexpected’. Harutyunyan has consistently maintained his innocence throughout the court process.

According to Sardaryan, the events did not happen as Simonyan claimed.

‘Firstly, it was not said in such a format, and secondly, the issue should be viewed from multiple perspectives — who said it, how, where, and what happened. There is a lot of evidence about all of this’, Sardaryan told RFE/RL.

Two charges, including the one in which he was convicted of on Thursday, were brought against Harutyunyan in September 2022, after which he was suspended from his post as Head of the Military Oversight Service of the Armenian Ministry of Defence and was banned from leaving the country. Harutyunyan had been appointed to the position in Armenia's Defence Ministry in February 2021.

His appointment came a few months after he was discharged from hospital from wounds sustained when a military vehicle he was travelling in was blown up during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.

In November 2023, Harutyunyan was acquitted of the charges related to a counterattack on 7 October 2020. According to the charges, Harutyunyan allegedly showed a negligent attitude towards the service, causing serious consequences — the counterattack failed, and Armenian units suffered large losses of military equipment and manpower.

A few days before charges were brought against Harutyunyan, Armenian authorities arrested his successor, Mikael Arzumanyan, for ‘negligence’ during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Earlier this January, Tiran Khachatryan, the former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces, was arrested and sentenced to two months of pre-trial detention on charges of demonstrating a negligent attitude towards the performance of his official duties during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Khachatryan had previously been awarded the title of National Hero for his service during the war.

Former defence minister of Nagorno-Karabakh arrested in Armenia

Armenian authorities have arrested the former Defence Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh, Mikael Arzumanyan, for ‘negligence’ during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. According to the Investigative Committee of Armenia, Arzumanyan ‘showed a negligent attitude to his official duties’ during the battle for…

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