Over three years after a fatal car accident in Yerevan, the Yerevan City Court sentenced Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s motorcade leader, Aram Navasardyan, to 1.5 years in prison. Navasardyan was convicted of fatally running over a young pregnant woman, Sona Mnatsakanyan, in April 2022 when accompanying Pashinyan to the Armenian Parliament.
Mnatsakanyan, 28, was seven months pregnant at the time of the accident. She and her unborn child died in the hospital shortly after.
The accident caused outrage in Armenia, especially considering that neither the car that hit the woman nor any other car from the motorcade stopped to assist the woman.
Ani Avetisyan
Following the tragedy, the lengthy court session began, which saw Mnatsakanyan’s family members’ health deteriorate.
On 30 July 2025, a court in Yerevan found Navasardyan guilty of causing a traffic violation resulting in death and of fleeing the scene of an accident.
According to the Monday ruling, aside from the imprisonment, Navasardyan will be deprived of his driving license for 1.5 years, as well as pay ֏4 million ($10,000) to Mnatsakanyan's family and ֏834,000 ($2,000) for the costs of the expert examination.
Mnatsakanyan’s family had originally demanded ֏10 million ($26,000) in damages to pay for her gravestone and funeral, as well as four years’ imprisonment.
Following the Monday ruling, both sides vowed to appeal the verdict.
According to Navasardyan’s lawyer, Ruben Baloyan, Navasardyan will start to serve his sentence once the appeal stage expires and the verdict enters into effect. RFE/RL also quoted Baloyan as saying that Navasardyan did not exceed the speed limit and was not at fault.
In turn, Mnatsakanyan’s father, Matsak Mnatsakanyan, expressed his disagreement with the verdict and his doubt that Navasardyan would serve his sentence.
Matsak Mnatsakanyan, according to RFE/RL, had previously expressed his dissatisfaction that Navasardyan was detained only for several days, and on top of that, his service as a police officer was not suspended.
According to the family’s lawyer, Raffi Aslanyan, key evidence of the case had gone missing, specifically, the radio communication between the convoy vehicles, which the lawyer claimed would have revealed who instructed Navasardyan to enter the intersection and who told him it was properly secured.
Mnatsakanyan’s family had argued that if the intersection had been properly closed, ‘their pregnant daughter would not have been able, would not have even had the possibility to enter the dangerous area of the intersection’, RFE/RL reported.
In turn, Civilnet cited the preliminary investigation, saying that Navasardyan violated traffic rules by driving at a speed of about 108.7 km/h, exceeding the permissible 100 km/h limit and did not take measures to reduce the speed.
According to the indictment, Navasardyan ran over ‘a pedestrian walking calmly’.
