Prosecutor General: March 2008 gatherings near Myasnikyan statue were  not a coup attempt

ArmInfo. During a meeting of the RA National Assembly Committee on State and Legal  Affairs on  March 29,  Prosecutor General Anna Vardapetyan, while  presenting her report on the work carried out by her office in 2025,  reported on some of the results of the investigation into the events   in Yerevan on March 1-2, 2008. 

The Prosecutor General noted that the criminal case against Deputy  Chief of Police Sasha Afyan, which was previously closed due to the  expiration of the statute of limitations, was reopened on August 11,  2025.  However, since the act of torture imputed to him constitutes  cruel treatment and cannot be subject to the statute of limitations,  on December 25, 2025, a decision was made to initiate a new public  criminal prosecution against Sasha Afyan. On the same day he was  charged with an offence outlined in Part 2 of Article 38-309 of the  former Criminal Code. Namely, Afyan, having exceeded his official  authority on March 1, 2008, in collusion with other high-ranking  police officials, organized the dispersal of a peaceful demonstration  in Freedom Square in Yerevan. This involved the use of violence and  special means, forcible removal of demonstrators from the square,  followed by a ban on their gatherings in the central districts of the  city. Thus, his actions violated the rights and legitimate interests  of individuals, as well as the rights of society and the state. On  December 26, 2025, it was decided to separate the criminal  proceedings against the accused, Sasha Afian. The case was sent to  court with an approved indictment.

Furthermore, as Anna Vardapetyan noted, on November 24, 2025, the  prosecutor submitted new indictments to the court against Robert  Kocharyan, Armen Gevorgyan, Seyran Ohanyan, Yuri Khachaturov, and  Armen Gevorgyan. On January 16, 2026, a judge of the Anti-Corruption  Court approved the new indictments against them. On August 11, 2025,  the Prosecutor General's Office filed a lawsuit with the  Anti-Corruption Court against Robert Kocharyan, Armen Gevorgyan,  Seyran Ohanyan, and Yuri Khachaturov, demanding the retroactive  confiscation of 670 million drams in favor of the Republic of Armenia  as compensation for the damages caused. At the same time, the  Prosecutor General's Office filed a motion for a security measure,  requesting the seizure of the property of Robert Kocharyan, Armen  Gevorgyan, Seyran Ohanyan, and Yuri Khachaturov in the amount of the  claim of 670 million drams. By a decision of the Anti-Corruption  Court on August 13, 2025, the claim was accepted for consideration,  and the motion for a security measure was granted.

On March 6, 2026, the prosecutor presented the criminal case  materials to the court with the approved indictment against the  defendants in the March 1 case: Robert Melkonyan, who served as  commander of the patrol regiment of the Yerevan City Police  Department of the Republic of Armenia in 2008; his deputy, Valery  Osipyan; and Karen Movsisyan, who served as a company commander in  the same regiment.

According to the case materials, the gatherings near the Myasnikyan  monument were the result of spontaneous and unorganized events, while  the earlier dispersal of protesters from Freedom Square, including  its violent nature, as well as several other similar or uncontrolled  events that occurred that same day, could have played a role in the  subsequent escalation of violence and did not constitute pre-planned  unrest or an attempted coup. There was no compelling evidence to  support the then authorities' assertions that the protesters who  perpetrated violence in the area were armed with firearms rather than  improvised devices, nor was there any evidence that the deaths were  the result of deliberate actions on the part of the protesters.

A review of the aforementioned events revealed that the lack of  clear, detailed, and mandatory instructions on the use of tear  grenades, the lack of proper training and supervision, and the use of  tear grenades significantly contributed to the misuse of these  crowd-dispersal weapons in violation of safety regulations, leading  to the deaths of three people. The deaths of five additional people  from firearms were caused by state actions.

The positions taken in the decisions of the cases Farmanyan et al. v.  Armenia, Mushegh Saghatelyan v.  Armenia, Myasnik Malkhasyan v.  Armenia, Dareskizb LLC v. Armenia, and Virabyan v. Armenia support  the opinion that the conclusions regarding the criminal-law  assessment of the events that took place in Yerevan on March 1-2 are  valid. These conclusions, in particular, concern the legal  prohibition on the application of statutes of limitations in this  case.